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CHRIST   IN   ART 


JOSEPH   LEWIS 


FRENCH 


CllxtstratelJ 


BOSTON 
L.    C.    PAGE   AND    COMPANY 

(iNCORPORATBrl) 
1900 


Copyright,  i8gg 
By  L.  C.  Page  and  Company 

(incorporated) 


ffolontal  )pte08 : 

Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Simonds  &  Ck>. 

Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 

IN  GRATEFUL  REMEMBRANCE 


FOREWORD. 


Out  of  religion,  which  may  be  broadly 
defined  as  the  stronger  elements  of  the 
human  soul,  concentrating  first  in  fear, 
then  in  superstition,  and  finally  in  faith, 
has  mainly  sprung  not  only  such  art  as  the 
world  knows  to-day,  but  much  that  is  lost 
for  ever.  It  is  but  the  natural  law  of 
progression  —  the  law  that  set  the  stars  in 
their  courses  —  that  the  fear  of  ages  ago, 
which  first  implanted  a  god  in  the  breast 
of  primeval  man,  should  have  passed 
through  the  fiery  furnace  of  superstition 
finally  to  triumph  as  the  faith  which  is  the 
corner-stone  of  the  Christian  religion. 

The  subject  of  the  Christ  is  thus  un- 
S 


FOREWORD. 


doubtedly  the  greatest  that  has  ever  en- 
tered into  the  domain  of  Art.  As  proof  of 
its  importance,  and  of  the  high  service  to 
religion  of  its  handmaiden,  Art,  in  the 
Christian  cycles,  there  has  never  been,  and 
never  can  be,  a  greatest  picture  of  the  Sa- 
viour, one  on  which  the  verdict  of  all  Time 
will  be  united,  but  a  series  of  them.  Those 
representations  which  have  best  satisfied 
the  ideal  of  their  time  belong  in  this  cate- 
gory. The  present  brochure  is  simply  a 
brief  effort  to  set  down  in  order  some  of 
the  attempts  that  have  been  made,  under 
varying  degrees  of  inspiration  and  influ- 
ence, to  picture  the  Saviour  and  His  life- 
work. 

Joseph  Lewis  French. 
Boston,  August  15,  1899. 


CONTENTS. 


» 


CHAPTER 

Foreword         .... 
I.    Introduction   .... 
II.    The  Christ -child   . 

III.  Christ  as  Teacher  and  Healer 

IV.  Christ  as  Martyr  . 

V.    Christ  Dead  and  Arisen 


PACK 

5 
13 
35 
69 

137 
221 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Leonardo  da  Vinci.  — Head  of  Christ.    (A  study 

for  the  Last  Supper.) Frontispiece 

Brera  Gallery,  Milan. 
Ghirlandajo.  — Christ    Calling    St.    Peter   and    St. 

Andrew 21 

Sistine  Chapel,  Rome. 

Titian.  — The  Redeemer 25 

Pitti  Gallery,  Florence. 

Le  RoLLE.  — Arrival  of  the  Shepherds 39 

CoRREGGio.  —  Repose  in  Egypt 40 

UJfizi  Gallery,  Floretice. 

LuiNl.  —  Christ  in  the  Temple ee 

National  Gallery,  London. 

GuiDO  Reni.  —  Christ  and  St.  John 59 

National  Gallery,  London. 
MURILLO.  —  Christ-child.     (From  the  Holy  Family.)     .      63 

National  Gallery,  London. 

Verocchio.  —  Baptism  of  Christ  (detail) 73 

A  cademy,  Florence. 
Ary  SCHEFFER.  — The  Temptation  of  Christ.     ...      81 
Veronese.  —  Marriage  at  Cana  (detail) 85 

Louvre,  Paris. 

Holman  Hunt.  — The  Light  of  the  World    ....      99 

Baroccio.  — The  Saviour 105 

Pitti  Gallery,  Florence. 

Raphael.  —  Transfiguration 113 

Vatican  Gallery,  Rome. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGB 

Titian.  —  Head   of  Christ.      (From   Christ  and  the 

Adulteress) 121 

Belvedere  Gallery,  Vienna. 
MURILLO.  —  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  Miracle  of  the 

Loaves  and  Fishes  (detail) 1 29 

Charity  Hospital,  Seville. 

Fra  Angelico.  —  Entry  into  Jerusalem 141 

Academy,  Florence. 

Titian.  —  Tribute  Money  (detail) 147 

Dresden  Gallery. 

Raphael  (attributed).  —  Head  of  Christ.    (From  the 

Last  Supper.) 153 

Egyptian  Museum,  Florence. 

HoFMANN.  —  Christ  in  Gethsemane 163 

MuNKACSY.  —  Christ  before  Pilate  (detail) 173 

Owned  by  Mr.  John  IVanamaker,  Philadelphia. 

GuiDO  Reni.  —  Ecce  Homo 181 

Dresden  Gallery. 

Gabriel  Max.  —  Napkin  of  St.  Veronica 185 

PiOMBO.  —  Christ  Bearing  the  Cross 195 

Dresden  Gallery. 

Perugino.  —  Crucifixion  (central  panel) 20i 

Church  of  Santa  Maria  Maddalena  dei  Pazzi,  Florence' 
Rubens.  —  Crucifixion 209 

Old  Pinacothek,  Munich. 

GuiDO  Renl  —  Crucifixion  (detail) 213 

Church  of  San  Lorenzo  in  Lucina,  Rome. 

Rubens.  —  Descent  from  the  Cross 223 

A  ntwerp  Cathedral. 

Fra  Bartolommeo.  —  Deposition 227 

Pitti  Gallery,  Florence. 

Caraccl  —  Pieta 235 

Louvre,  Paris. 
CORREGGIO.  —  Noli  Me  Tangere 243 

Prado  Gallery,  Madrid. 
Palm  A  Vecchio.  —  Supper  at  Emmaus 249 

Pita  Gallery,  Florence. 
Mantegna.  —  Ascension  (detail) 255 

Uffizi  Gallery,  Florence. 


I 

INTRODUCTION 


"  For  don't  you  mark,  we're  made  so  that  we  love 
First  when  we  see  them  painted,  things  we  have 

passed 
Perhaps  a  hundred  times  nor  cared  to  see. 


If  I  drew  higher  things  with  the  same  truth, 
That  were  to  take  the  Prior's  pulpit  place, 
Interpret  God  to  all  of  you." 

"  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  "  —  Browning. 


CHRIST   IN   ART. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

;HE  earliest  Christians,  in  their 
total  reaction  from  the  aestheti- 
cism  of  pagan  life,  counted  the 
mere  sense  of  beauty  as  some  sort  of  a  per- 
sonal sin,  and  for  nearly  thirteen  centuries 
what  survived  of  Christian  art  was  with- 
out any  special  appeal  to  the  finer  senses. 
Thus  Art  perished  almost  utterly  in  the 
Dark  Ages,  only  to  be  revived  as  the 
spirit  of  the  mighty  Greeks  again  re- 
sumed its  sway  over  the  minds  of  men. 
13 


14  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

The  first  four  or  five  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era  consequently  make  for  little 
in  any  chronicle  of  religious  art.  Aside 
from  some  almost  obliterated  and  very 
rude  paintings  in  the  Catacombs  of 
Rome,  representing  a  quite  narrow  range 
of  subjects,  a  few  scarce  bas-relief  orna- 
mentations of  the  tombs  of  the  great, 
and  certain  rare  fragments  of  mosaic 
work  found  in  the  churches,  there  is 
nothing  left  to  us  of  the  very  earliest 
period. 

The  most  notable  art  monument  of 
the  first  five  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era  is  the  carved  ivory  throne  of  the 
Bishop  Maximian,  which  is  standing 
to-day  in  the  Cathedral  of  Ravenna. 
The  representations  are  a  series  of  bas- 
relief  panels  divided  between  scenes  in 
the  life  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  the  life 
of  Joseph  (the  patriarch),  and  the  life  of 
our  Saviour. 


INTRODUCTION.  1 5 

The  first  important  memorial  which  we 
still  possess  of  the  second  period  of  Chris- 
tian art,  beginning  about  the  commence- 
ment of  the  sixth  century,  are  some 
mosaics  in  the  remains  of  another  early- 
basilica  in  Ravenna,  the  Church  of  S. 
Apollinare  Nuovo.  This  relic  consists  of 
twenty-two  scenes  taken  wholly  from  the 
life  and  ministry  of  Christ.  These  are 
still  in  a  very  fair  state  of  preservation, 
and  constitute  a  starting-point  in  the 
record  of  religious  symbolism  that  is  al- 
most beyond  value  to  the  art  student  and 
the  historiographer. 

It  was  about  the  time  of  their  origin 
that  the  era  of  church  building  began, 
whose  crown  was  to  come  from  the  hand 
of  Michael  Angelo  in  the  rounding  of  the 
dome  of  St.  Peter's.  Monasteries  also 
multiplied.  It  was  an  age  of  great  relig- 
ious fervour,  which  is,  indeed,  the  chief 
vital   characteristic,   the  living  spark,   of 


1 6  CHRIST  IN   ART. 

the  whole  period  known  as  the  Dark 
Ages.  The  Church  was  all  in  all  to  the 
people,  and,  as  edifices  dedicated  to  the 
faith  arose,  means  to  adorn  and  beautify 
them  gradually  increased.  The  funda- 
mental spirit  of  this  decoration  was  the 
exposition  of  the  meaning  of  Christ  and 
His  life.  The  chief  idea  in  decorating  a 
new  cathedral  was  indeed  the  same  in  all 
essentials  of  conception  as  that  which 
exists  to  this  very  day.  Certain  scenes 
from  the  historic  life  of  our  Lord  were 
selected  and  worked  out  in  painting, 
in  mosaic,  and  in  carvings  of  wood, 
bronze,  ivory,  or  stone. 

The  subjects  were  rigidly  selected  by 
a  council  of  ecclesiastics,  and  the  artist, 
in  the  present-day  sense,  was  almost 
wholly  an  artisan.  Examples  of  this  period 
are,  unfortunately,  as  rare  as  those  of  the 
earliest  one.  To  the  Church  of  St. 
George,   at   Oberzell,   in    Germany,    the 


INTRODUCTION.  1 7 

traveller  must  make  his  pilgrimage  to 
find  the  oldest  relic.  This  is  a  series 
of  frescoes,  attributed  to  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, which  forms  a  frieze  over  the  nave 
of  the  church. 

The  next  remaining  traces  of  mediaeval 
Christian  art  are  two  centuries  later,  and 
can  be  seen  in  the  church  at  Vic,  in  the 
department  of  the  Indre  et  Loire,  in 
France.  Only  four  colours,  white,  red, 
yellow,  and  black,  were  used  in  painting 
even  this  comparatively  late  example,  and 
while  considerable  life  is  manifested  in 
the  spirit  of  the  composition,  the  drawing 
is  very  harsh  and  crude. 

The  Gaeta  column,  still  standing  in 
front  of  the  Gaeta  cathedral,  is  the  most 
interesting  and  remarkable  remnant  of 
the  mediaeval  period  existing  in  Italy. 
This  is  a  marble  pillar  twenty  feet  high, 
supported  on  the  backs  of  carved  lions. 
All  of  its  four  sides  are  sculptured  with 


1 8  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

sacred  subjects.  It  was  at  this  period 
that  the  stained  glass  window,  of  which 
some  beautiful  early  examples  are  still  ex- 
tant in  France  particularly,  was  first  em- 
ployed to  teach  religious  object-lessons. 

This  was  also  the  era  of  illuminated 
manuscripts,  on  single  copies  of  which 
a  monk  often  toiled  a  lifetime,  but 
which  were  the  treasured  possessions  of 
the  monasteries  and  the  nobles,  and  were 
almost  inaccessible  to  the  people.  The 
ownership  of  a  rich  missal  was  as  much 
coveted  in  the  Dark  Ages  as  the  posses- 
sion of  a  splendid  mansion  would  be 
to-day. 

The  use  of  all  these  mediums  gradually 
and  naturally  concentred  in  the  employ- 
ment of  the  easiest  and  most  readily 
accessible  form  of  representation,  —  paint- 
ings, —  mural  and  otherwise. 

The  art  of  painting  had  slowly  pro- 
gressed till  at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth 


INTRODUCTION.  1 9 

century  it  had  superseded  all  other  forms. 
Examples  of  this  period  are,  however,  of 
little  interest  save  to  the  art  student  and 
the  religious  historian.  Only  with  the 
dawn  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  does  the 
subject  become  of  relative  importance  to 
the  general  peoples  of  civilisation.  All 
of  the  Italian  masters  of  this  and  the 
succeeding  periods,  and  most  of  those  of 
Northern  Europe,  may  be  studied  with 
profit  and,  in  most  instances,  with  delight 
by  the  average  person  of  to-day. 

The  story  of  Christian  art,  so  far  as  it 
interests  us  of  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century,  opens  picturesquely  — 
inspirationally  even  —  with  that  joyous 
procession  that  on  a  certain  summer  day, 
at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
carried  the  Madonna  of  Cimabue  in  tri- 
umph to  its  resting-place  in  the  Church 
of  Santa  Maria  Novella  in  Florence. 
This,   the   first  recorded   achievement    of 


20  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

the  ideal  over  the  ascetic  spirit,  marked 
the  awakening  of  a  new  birth  of  meaning 
in  the  Holy  Emblems  in  the  breasts  of 
the  people. 

The  first  really  great  impulse  toward 
what  we  know  as  modern  art,  however, 
came  from  the  hand  of  Giotto,  who  in 
1306  finished  the  great  frescoes  which 
still  adorn  the  Chapel  of  the  Arena  at 
Padua.  A  genuine  attempt  to  seriously 
introduce  human  character  into  painting 
will  be  found  in  these  works,  which,  so 
long  as  they  remain  decipherable,  consti- 
tute a  priceless  relic  of  the  first  period  of 
modern  art.  While  it  is  scarcely  likely 
that  Giotto  used  the  living  model,  which 
indeed  was  not  freely  done  for  a  couple  of 
centuries  following,  he  made  bold  to  em- 
ploy his  wonderful  power  of  seeing  human 
life  in  the  people  around  him,  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  character  and  ministry  of  the 
Saviour. 


< 

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< 
oi 

a 
O 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

Another  great  painter  of  this  period, 
Fra  AngeHco,  who  immediately  followed 
Giotto,  showed  more  of  a  return  to  the 
earlier  ascetic  manner  in  treatment,  but 
his  long  series  of  works  remain,  neverthe- 
less, masterpieces  of  spiritual  conception. 

A  reference  to  the  era  preceding  the 
true  Renaissance  would  be  incomplete 
without  the  mention  of  the  marvellous 
work  of  Ghiberti,  in  bronze,  which  still 
forms  the  doors  of  the  Baptistery  of 
Florence.  The  life  of  Christ  is  here  de- 
picted in  twenty  scenes.  These  gates,  of 
which  many  replicas  adorn  art  museums 
the  world  over,  are  doubtless  more  or  less 
familiar  to  the  general  reader. 

The  most  important  contribution  of  this 
period  of  aesthetic  awakening  to  Christian 
art  in  the  Holy  City  was  the  series  of 
frescoes  for  the  walls  of  the  Sistine  Chapel, 
for  which  a  number  of  painters  were  sum- 
moned from  the  provinces  to  Rome. 


24  CHRIST   IN"  ART. 

Such  was  the  development  of  painting 
at  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century 
that  the  greater  artists,  more  sure  of  their 
craft,  began  to  devote  themselves  to  spe- 
cially selected  subjects  from  the  life  of 
Christ  rather  than  to  the  employment,  as 
in  most  instances  previously,  of  years  of 
labour  on  a  more  or  less  complete  series  for 
the  adornment  of  a  single  edifice.  The 
generation  immediately  following  thus 
produced  what  we  acknowledge  to-day 
to  be  the  early,  and  in  many  respects 
the  still  unsurpassed,  masterpieces  of 
Christian  art.  To  this  period  belong  the 
splendid  works  of  Michael  Angelo,  of 
Leonardo  Da  Vinci,  of  Raphael,  and  of 
Titian. 

Tintoretto,  alone  of  all  the  great  masters 
of  this  the  golden  age  of  Italian  painting, 
set  his  hand  to  a  whole  series  after  the 
example  of  Giotto  and  the  earliest  masters. 
These  constitute  that  splendid  set  of  fres- 


Titian.  —  The  Redeemer. 


INTRODUCTION.  1*] 

coes  which  adorns  the  Cathedral  of  San 
Rocco  at  Venice. 

Passing  over  three  centuries,  we  note 
the  somewhat  curious  circumstance  that 
this  art  serial  treatment  of  the  life  of 
Christ  is  revived  in  our  own.  There 
have  been  four  important  examples '  of 
this  great  undertaking,  of  which  Dore's 
Bible  is  known  to  the  masses  of  civilisa- 
tion, and  a  notable  series  of  more  than 
four  hundred  pictures  has  only  within  four 
years  been  completed  by  James  Tissot,  of 
Paris,  the  originals  of  which  were  only  last 
year  exhibited  in  this  country. 

In  modern  religion.  Art,  if  the  plain 
truth  is  accepted,  has  always  been  more 
or  less  of  an  anomaly,  in  many  cases  a 
decided  outcast. 

There  are  whole  orders  to  this  day 
whose  churches  are  unadorned  by  a  single 
religious  painting.  But  two  indeed  of  all 
the  enlightened  sects  of  Christendom  have 


28  CHRIST    IN   ART. 

steadily  and  conscientiously  conserved 
Art  from  the  beginning.  To  the  Roman 
Catholic  and  the  Episcopal  denominations 
belongs  all  the  credit  for  keeping  alight 
through  the  centuries  the  torch  of  Art 
as  a  religious  emblem. 

It  is  within  the  memory  of  the  present 
generation  that  so  much  as  a  stained  glass 
memorial  window  has  been  admitted  into 
the  churches  of  the  dissenting  denomina- 
tions. Since  the  days  of  Martin  Luther 
all  forms  of  religion  have  looked  askance 
upon  Art  save  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  and  its  sister  institution.  The 
causes  are  not  far  to  seek.  The  sense 
of  beauty  as  an  attribute  of  living  has, 
since  the  sturdy  Reformer  who  stood  for 
a  renascence  of  the  early  Christian  spirit, 
been  regarded  chiefly  in  the  light  of  a 
snare  and  a  temptation.  The  harking 
back  to  old  Hebraic  standards,  which  was 
also  one  of  the  chief  notes  of  the  Refor- 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

mation,  reinstated  that  ideal  of  Supreme 
Divinity,  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  who  is  ever  revealed  as  a  stern 
God,  whose  exactions  are,  before  all,  obe- 
dience and  self-sacrifice.  The  character 
of  the  Christ,  instinct  with  beauty  of  so 
complete  and  commanding  a  type  that, 
on  the  revival  of  the  aesthetic  instinct  in 
the  breasts  of  mankind,  coeval  with  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  it  became  the  chief 
inspirational  motive  of  Art,  was  over- 
shadowed throughout  a  considerable  area 
of  civilisation  by  the  stern  message  of 
Luther  and  of  Calvin. 

The  value  and  stimulus  of  the  aesthetic 
motive  as  an  aid  to  religious  inspiration 
is  becoming  of  late  years,  however,  more 
and  more  acknowlejiged.  The  chief  form 
which  it  has  thus  far  assumed  in  many 
denominations  which  had  entirely  pro- 
hibited Art  from  their  foundation,  aside 
from  a  highly  cultivated  musical  service, 


30  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

which  has  been  introduced  only  within 
a  couple  of  decades,  is  the  stained  glass 
window.  Examples  of  fine  quality  are 
now  found  in  the  churches  of  the  Unita- 
rian, the  Baptist,  the  Presbyterian  and 
other  sects.  The  most  important  of 
these  are  the  fruits  of  the  long  career 
of  John  la  Farge,  which  is,  thus  far,  the 
only  generally  known  name  in  the  very 
brief  history  of  religious  painting  in 
America,  although  some  recent  important 
works  by  Abbott  Thayer  and  George 
Hitchcock  seem  to  promise  the  dawn 
of  a  native  tradition.  The  followers  of 
John  Wesley  still  hold  noticeably  aloof, 
although  a  more  liberal  spirit  in  the  use 
of  colour  in  the  decoration  of  their  recent 
churches,  and  of  music,  even  to  the  intro- 
duction of  works  by  masters  who  wrote 
wholly  under  the  inspiration  of  Roman 
Catholicism,  is  decidedly  apparent. 

The  day  of  a  general  revival  of  religious 


INTRODUCTION.  3 1 

art  is  perhaps  not  far  distant.  Mural 
decoration  is  undoubtedly  at  this  moment 
the  leading  art  motive  in  the  United 
States.  The  acknowledged  beginnings  of 
a  national  art  are,  it  is  confidently  hoped, 
apparent  in  this  feeling.  And  the  chief, 
the  inevitable  centre  of  inspiration  must 
come  as  it  came  in  the  days  of  the 
pontiffs  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  from 
the  Church. 

There  are  other  sects  of  power  and 
influence  to-day,  beside  the  only  one 
which  existed  in  the  time  of  Raphael, 
and  it  is  an  important  sign  for  the  revi- 
val of  great  art,  that  these  have  begun 
to  encourage  the  painter,  the  sculptor, 
and  the  designer.  Out  of  the  darkness 
of  indifference  to  the  great  message  held 
in  solution  by  sound  and  form  and  colour, 
which  have  lain  like  a  ban  on  Protestant 
communities  since  the  Reformation,  we 
are  gradually  emerging  as  a  whole  relig- 


32  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

ious  people.  And  the  event  prophesies 
a  more  splendid  day  for  Art  than  the 
world  has  ever  before  known. 

The  aesthetic  spirit  has  gradually  be- 
come a  commanding  influence  in  general 
civilisation,  and,  aided  by  the  great  acces- 
sions to  the  resources  of  technique,  which 
have  been  developed  within  the  past 
half-century,  it  has  given  us  from  the 
hands  of  a  few  of  the  European  masters 
some  of  the  most  important  contributions 
to  religious  painting  that  have  been 
produced. 


II. 

THE  CHRIST- CHILD 


It  was  the  winter  wild 
When  the  heaven-born  child, 
All  meanly  wrapt,  in  the  rude  manger  lies. 
Nature  in  awe  of  him 
Had  doffed  her  gaudy  trim, 
With  her  great  master  so  to  sympathise. 
"  Hymn  to  the  Nativity  "  —  Milton. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE   CHRIST  -  CHILD. 

HE  key-note  of  our  Lord's  char- 
acter, humility,  is  epitomised  in 
the  circumstances  of  His  birth. 
Save  the  visit  of  the  Wise  Men,  the 
whole  scene  is  in  every  detail  of  the  low- 
liest character.  For  the  purposes  of  art 
treatment  this  is  a  particular  advantage, 
and  it  has  been  well  remarked  in  this 
connection,  of  the  manger  at  Bethlehem, 
that  "  the  bedchamber  of  a  prince  would 
be  commonplace  in  comparison." 

As  in  most  other  instances,  Giotto  was 
the  innovator  in  a  treatment  of  the  scene 
that  had  remained  traditional  for  cen- 
turies.    From  the  unnatural  stiffness  of 

35 


36  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

mediaeval  representations  he  departed  so 
far  as  to  depict,  for  the  first  time,  some- 
thing of  the  genuine  atmosphere  of 
motherhood,  the  Mother  in  all  his  ex- 
amples bearing  a  perfectly  natural  rela- 
tion to  the  Child  in  the  scene.  Many- 
Nativities  immediately  following  his  time 
degenerated  into  Adorations,  the  princi- 
pal motive  of  which  was  the  representa- 
tion of  Mary  kneeling  before  the  Babe 
in  an  attitude  of  worship.  Hans  Mem- 
ling,  Durer,  and  the  Northern  masters 
in  general  followed  the  example  of  the 
Italian  painters  of  the  period  in  thus 
rendering  the  scene. 

There  are,  nevertheless,  many  great 
contributions  to  Art  in  this  class  of  Nativ- 
ities. Andrea  Delia  Robbia's  fine  group 
in  marble  in  the  Convent  of  La  Verna, 
Italy,  is  one  of  the  masterpieces  of 
Renaissance  sculpture,  full  of  the  most 
exquisite  human  beauty,  wedded   to  the 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  37 

charm  of  religious  feeling.  One  of  Fra 
Filippo  Lippi's  pictures  represent  the 
Mother  thus  adoring  the  Holy  Babe, 
and  is  called  the  Virgin  in  the  Wood. 
This  is  not  a  Nativity,  although  so  close 
to  the  subject  that  it  must  be  referred 
to  here  as  one  of  the  great  early  religious 
paintings.  It  is  now  in  the  Berlin  Gal- 
lery. The  Florentine  school  gives  us  the 
best  early  examples  of  the  Nativity  in  the 
work  of  Botticelli,  Perugino,  and  others. 
Correggio's  La  Notte,  in  the  Dresden 
Gallery,  has  for  generations  been  the  most 
popular  of  all  pictures  of  the  subject. 

One  of  the  best  knovyn  of  the  Nativi- 
ties of  the  early  Northern  painters  is  the 
work  of  Roger  Van  Der  Weyden,  who 
was  born  in  1480.  This  grand  paint- 
ing, full  of  deep  sincerity,  and  splendid 
in  colouring,  is  now  in  the  Museum  at 
Berlin. 

The  greatest  presentation  of  the  theme 


38  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

in  Art,  however,  is  nevertheless  conceded 
to  be  the  modern  one,  and  the  chief 
honour  perhaps  belongs  to  Sir  Edward 
Burne-Jones,  whose  Nativity  in  the  Epis- 
copal church  at  Torquay,  in  England, 
would  alone  have  made  his  fame  as  a 
religious  painter.  The  other  examples  of 
this  master,  all  employed  as  mural  decora- 
tions, one  of  which  is  in  a  church  in 
Rome,  are  scarcely  inferior. 

Fritz  Von  Uhde's  Holy  Night  is  mem- 
orable among  modern  German  pictures  of 
the  subject.  Le  Rolle's  Arrival  of  the 
Shepherds  is  the  best  of  the  modern 
French  works.  This  is  a  very  simple, 
direct  conception  that  is  treated  in  a 
strikingly  original  way. 

The  Adoration  of  the  Magi  was,  in  the 
order  of  events  in  the  life  of  Christ,  the 
first  sacred  theme  to  really  enthrall  the  im- 
agination of  the  opening  period  of  the  Re- 
naissance.    The  possibilities  of  the  scene 


THE    CHRIST -CHILD.  4I 

were  an  open  invitation  to  a  gorgeous 
revel  of  technique  which  was  promptly 
taken  advantage  of.  Gentile  da  Fabri- 
ano's  The  Adoration  of  the  Kings,  the 
earliest  prominent  example  of  this  class 
of  pictures,  was  painted  for  the  sacristy 
of  La  Trinita  in  Florence,  about  1420. 
Fabriano  plunges  at  once  into  magnifi- 
cence of  the  most  extreme  type  in  his 
figures  of  the  kings,  the  foremost  one  of 
whom,  as  if  to  point  the  antithesis,  kneels 
to  kiss  the  protruding  foot  of  the  Christ- 
child.  Perugino,  it  is  stated,  painted  the 
the  subject  con  amove  as  a  mural  decora- 
tion, and  more  than  once.  For  a  hundred 
years  the  Adoration  was  a  favourite  sub- 
ject of  the  Florentine  school,  reaching 
high-water  mark  in  the  conceptions  of 
Botticelli  and  his  pupil,  Filippino  Lippi. 
Botticelli  painted  four  known  Adorations, 
of  which  that  in  the  Uffizi  in  Florence 
contains  the  portraits  of  Cosimo,  Guili- 


42  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

ano,  and  Giovanni  de  Medici,  his  noble 
patrons. 

The  Venetian  style  was  peculiarly  well- 
adapted  to  cope  with  that  gorgeous  treat- 
ment of  this  subject  which  is  a  tradition 
of  the  fifteenth  and  early  sixteenth  cen- 
turies. Bonifazio,  Veronese,  and  Tinto- 
retto are  among  the  masters  of  the 
Venetian  school  who  have  added  to  their 
fame  by  it. 

The  "superlative  degree  of  elabora- 
tion "  is  exhibited  in  the  Procession  of 
the  Magi,  a  fresco  in  the  Riccardi  Palace, 
at  Florence.  This  is  simply  a  splendid 
cortege  of  the  nobles  and  dignitaries 
of  Florence  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
The  detailed  description  of  this  single 
work  will  give  a  succinct  idea  of  the 
depth  and  freedom  of  invention  which 
the  Renaissance  of  painting  in  Italy  had 
achieved  by  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century. 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  43 

There  is  first  to  the  left  of  the  approach 
to  the  manger  a  choir  of  angels.  These 
are  painted  individually,  each  head  from 
life,  with  strong  feeling,  and  are  a  most 
interesting  study  in  themselves.  At  the 
right  is  seen  the  procession  winding  in 
toward  the  place  where  the  Babe  lies. 
Riding  at  the  head,  on  a  richly  caparisoned 
white  mule,  is  the  venerable  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  attended  by  the  heads 
of  the  Church,  who  are  followed  by  the 
chief  dignitaries  of  the  Republic,  appar- 
elled as  become  their  state,  and  attended 
by  pages  and  outriders.  This  is  a  mar- 
vellous collection  of  contemporary  por- 
traits, as  indeed  may  be  stated  of  the 
whole  fresco,  so  far  as  the  human  faces 
are  concerned.  In  the  centre  of  the 
cortege,  with  a  clear  space  about  him,  so 
as  to  give  the  proper  distinction,  appears 
a  striking  and  magnificent  figure  mounted 
on  a  large  white  stallion,  —  here  introduced 


44  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

as  the  second  of  the  three  kings,  and  a 
portrait  of  the  Greek  Emperor  John 
Paleologus. 

All  the  sports  of  the  field  —  hunting, 
hawking  —  are  represented  as  in  progress 
in  the  background  of  the  picture  as  the 
procession  moves  along,  and  hawks, 
hounds,  hunting  leopards  held  in  leash, 
and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  the  chase  are 
shown.  To  be  in  itself  a  complete  pano- 
rama of  noble  sport  out-of-doors,  the  com- 
position lacks  only  the  presence  of  ladies. 
The  spirit  of  this  company  is  grave,  yet 
buoyant.  There  is  no  attempt  at  the 
introduction  of  religious  feeling,  save  in 
the  faces  of  the  ecclesiastics,  in  which  as 
an  element  of  correct  portraiture  it  is 
inevitable.  A  motley  crowd  of  all  condi- 
tions of  men  and  boys  brings  up  the  rear 
of  the  cortege,  precisely  the  same  as 
follows  a  street  procession  to  this  day. 
The   landscape   through  which  this  gor- 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  45 

geous  train  winds  its  way  is  rich,  varied, 
curiously  composed,  in  that  it  introduces 
almost  every  variety  of  flora  and  many  of 
fauna  then  known. 

The  painter,  Benozzo  Gozzoli  (1420- 
1498),  was  a  favourite  pupil  of  Fra  An- 
gelico.  Vasari's  description  seems  to  fit 
him  exactly.  "  He  was  of  great  inven- 
tion, very  fertile  in  animals,  in  perspec- 
tive, in  landscape,  and  in  ornament." 

This  amazing  work,  begun  probably  in 
1459,  occupies  three  walls  of  the  chapel 
of  the  Riccardi  Palace,  the  fourth  being 
completed  by  the  actual  scene  of  the 
Adoration.  The  painting  is  to-day  al- 
most as  fresh  as  when  completed.  W.  J. 
Stillman,  who  visited  it  in  1892,  remarks: 
"  It  is  the  most  extraordinary  agglomera- 
tion of  pose  plastique  in  all  the  range  of 
the  Renaissance.  It  is  such  a  collection 
of  unquestionable  portraits  as  I  do  not 
know  elsewhere  in  the  world." 


46  CHRIST    IN   ART. 

There  are  in  the  work  many  faults 
of  composition  which  Gozzoli  afterward 
relinquished,  but  this  instance  will  serve 
very  well  to  show  that  the  utmost  range  of 
invention  and  the  freest  use  of  the  living 
model  had  been  finally  attained. 

If  the  reader  would  study  an  Adoration 
of  the  Shepherds,  a  theme  which  has 
often  been  rendered  of  itself  by  religious 
painters  of  all  times,  let  him  see  the  pic- 
ture of  that  name  by  Domenico  Ghirlan- 
dajo,  a  noble  early  Renaissance  painter  in 
the  Academy  at  Florence.  He  will  find 
the  whole  composition  somewhat  curious, 
perhaps.  The  chief  one  of  the  shepherds 
looks  very  much  like  a  statesman ;  there 
is  some  strange  rich  architecture  for  a 
manger  scene,  and  the  attitudes  of  both 
Joseph  and  Mary  are  somewhat  stiff. 
But  if  there  is  reverence  for  the  common 
creed  in  his  soul  anywhere,  he  will  find  it 
growing  up  in  him  as  he  looks  upon  this 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  47 

sweet,  serious,  earnest  delineation.  He 
will  get  some  idea  what  a  deep  living  thing 
religion  was  with  some  of  these  old  Italian 
masters,  and  how  the  seeking  after  divinity- 
has  preserved  their  art  to  us,  and  makes 
beautiful  in  it  much  that  is  quite  repellant 
to  modern  nations  of  taste. 

That  classic  modern  French  painter, 
Bouguereau,  to  span  several  centuries 
and  come  down  to  yesterday,  has  a  rich 
and  beautiful  composition  called  The 
Adoration  of  the  Magi  in  the  Church  of 
St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  Paris,  which  prob- 
ably fills  the  general  popular  ideal  of 
to-day  in  the  fullest  measure. 

A  great  work  in  our  own  country  in 
religious  painting  has  been  done  by  John 
La  Farge,  who  has  a  grand  picture  called 
The  Arrival  of  the  Magi  at  Bethlehem,  in 
the  Church  of  the  Incarnation  in  New 
York  City. 

Of  the  life  of  Mary  after  the  birth  of 


48  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

our  Lord  we  know  but  little.  There  is 
only  a  glimpse  here  and  there  in  the 
Gospels.  Hers  is  the  crown  of  meekness 
over  all  women.  Her  sweet  spiritual 
presence  seems  to  hover  ever  in  the  back- 
ground, the  embodiment  of  the  apotheosis 
of  self-sacrifice. 

The  portrayal  of  the  Madonna  in  Art  is 
therefore  necessarily  but  a  shadowy  con- 
ception compared  to  the  living,  vital  pres- 
ence of  the  Saviour  Himself.  There  is, 
indeed,  but  one  other  figure  of  His  time 
who  can  be  classed  with  Him,  St.  John  the 
Baptist. 

There  are  but  two  events  in  the  life 
of  our  Lord  subsequent  to  the  Nativity 
in  which  Mary  appears  in  general  art, — 
the  Flight  into  Egypt  and  the  Finding  of 
Christ  in  the  Temple.  The  former  is  a 
monumental  subject,  so  far  as  regards  the 
number  of  pictures  of  it  that  have  been 
made.     The  list  of  them  is  the  roll-call  of 


CoRREGGio,  —  Repose  in  Egypt. 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  5 1 

the  painters,  from  Giotto,  and  before,  to 
the  men  of  to-day,  in  some  cases  answered 
to  half  a  dozen  times. 

Giotto's  picture,  which  is  part  of  the 
Arena  Chapel  frescoes  at  Padua,  is  one  of 
the  best  known  and  most  often  reproduced 
of  all  examples  of  his  style.  This,  as  many 
of  the  earlier  pictures,  has  a  figure  of  a 
guiding  angel  poised  in  the  air  above  the 
scene.  Fra  Angelico's  general  composi- 
tion (the  picture  is  in  the  Florence 
Academy)  is  of  much  the  same  cast  as 
Giotto's.  Both  seek  to  stir,  first  of  all,  a 
deeply  religious  sentiment  in  the  beholder. 
Albert  Diirer,  as  his  contribution  to  the 
general  theme,  chose  to  treat  the  sojourn 
in  Egypt.  It  is  handled  in  his  usual  real- 
istic manner,  and  is  part  of  his  Little 
Passion  series.  Rembrandt,  who  revelled  in 
shadow,  and  therefore  loved  night  scenes, 
made  a  painting  of  the  Flight,  which  is 
preserved  in  the  Berlin  Gallery.     It  is  not 


52  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

one  of  the  great  works  of  religious  art, 
being  very  much  in  the  Dutch  method 
which  was  wider  of  the  mark  set  by  the 
Renaissance  painters  than  that  of  any 
other  school.  Yet  the  picture  is  of  great 
value  as  possessing  the  general  unmistak- 
able qualities  of  this  master. 

Tintoretto's  picture  in  the  series  of 
frescoes  in  the  Cathedral  of  San  Rocco,  at 
Venice,  is  notable  among  all  the  Italian 
works  for  the  special  care  and  pains  he 
has  bestowed  upon  the  landscape.  This 
remark  applies  also  to  the  Madonna,  the 
artist,  like  many  another  of  his  period, 
choosing  to  regard  the  legend  as  rather 
belonging  to  the  life  of  Mary  than  that  of 
our  Lord. 

To  speak  of  a  sijngle  picture  which 
seems  indeed  to  apotheosise  the  ar- 
tistic possibilities  of  the  subject,  and 
which  has  been  somewhat  widely  charac- 
terised as  "  the  greatest  religious  picture 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  53 

of  our  time,"  the  work  of  Holman  Hunt, 
first  exhibited  in  1888,  recurs  instantly. 
The  presentation  of  the  subject  here  is 
altogether  ideal,  although  the  groundwork 
of  the  composition  evinces  the  closest 
attention  to  contemporary  details.  The 
key-note  of  the  picture  is  that  of  joyous 
expectation,  a  sentiment  which  lifts  it 
quite  out  of  the  plane  of  all  other 
Flights  which  are  treated  without  ex- 
ception from  the  standpoint  of  semi- 
tragedy.  It  is  this  very  unexpected 
manner  which  has  undoubtedly  con- 
tributed chiefly  to  give  the  work  its 
popular  acclaim. 

Two  other  notable  modern  pictures  are 
the  In  the  Shadow  of  Isis  of  Luc  Olivier 
Merson,  a  religious  work  of  which  the 
close  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  reason 
to  be  proud.  The  Flight  into  Egypt,  by 
Pierre  La  Garde,  another  contemporary 
French  artist,  is  also  a  striking  and  effec- 


54  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

tive,  albeit  quite  simple,  treatment  of  the 
great  theme. 

The  scene  of  the  finding  of  Christ 
in  the  Temple  disputing  with  the  Doc- 
tors, while  the  subject  of  many  decora- 
tions, has  also  inspired  a  number  of 
splendid  easel  pieces.  To  mention  a  few 
of  the  more  memorable  Disputations, 
Bernardino  Luini,  one  of  the  masters  of 
the  Milanese  school,  has  two, —  one  in  the 
Sanctuary  Church  of  Saronno,  of  which 
the  story  runs  that,  having  killed  a  man 
in  self-defence,  he  sought  an  asylum  here 
with  the  monks,  which  he  obtained  on 
condition  that  he  should  cover  the  walls 
of  the  church  with  scenes  from  the 
life  of  our  Lord.  The  other,  evidently 
painted  under  less  strenuous  circum- 
stances, contains  a  sweet  and  lovely, 
though  rather  too  dreamy,  head  of  the 
youthful  Saviour,  with  heads  of  four 
doctors.     It  is   a   noteworthy   work,  and 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  57 

has  found  a  final  resting-place  in  the 
National  Gallery  of  London. 

There  is  a  lovely,  though  somewhat 
expressionless  type,  suggesting,  as  Luini's 
do,  a  female  model,  in  Boccacino's  Christ 
with  the  Doctors,  in  the  Royal  Academy, 
Florence. 

The  Disputation  of  Pennachi,  also  in 
this  collection,  while  a  splendid  piece  of 
composition  and  colouring,  is  wide  of  the 
mark  as  an  actual  depiction  of  the  probable 
scene.  It  is  somewhat  curious,  even  con- 
sidering the  period,  that  such  remarkable 
technical  skill  should  have  been  wasted 
on  so  artificial  a  rendering  of  the  subject. 
The  picture  represents  the  boy  Christ 
high  on  a  throne,  while  a  group  of  Church 
dignitaries,  contemporary  with  the  painter, 
are  grouped  standing  in  stereotyped  atti- 
tudes below  Him.  Full-length  portraiture 
is  evidently  the  chief  intention. 

Heinrich    Hofmann's    well-known   pic- 


58  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

ture  is  the  best  liked  of  the  modern  Dis- 
putations, although  the  splendid  rendering 
of  the  scene  by  Holman  Hunt  is  by  far 
the  more  important  work.  The  head  of 
the  Christ  in  Hofmann's  picture  has 
been  for  a  generation,  perhaps,  the  most 
generally  popular  picture  of  the  youthful 
Saviour. 

Of  young  St.  Johns  the  number  is 
only  second  to  pictures  of  our  Lord  in 
the  first  period  of  His  life.  Raphael  has 
a  strenuously  beautiful  St.  John  in  the 
Desert,  in  the  Galerie  Royale,  Florence. 
Then  there  is  the  well-known  Young  St. 
John  of  Andrea  Del  Sarto,  with  its 

"  Strange,  prophetic,  haunting,  fateful  eyes," 

as  some  recent  poet  has  called  them.  Luini 
also  painted  a  Virgin  and  Child  with  St. 
John,  as  part  of  the  fresco  in  the  Church  of 
Santa  Maria  Degli  Angeli ;  also  a  Jesus  and 
St.  John  as  infants  embracing  one  another.. 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  6 1 

Guido  Reni's  Christ  and  St.  John  as 
children  is,  as  might  be  expected  of  the 
painter  of  the  head  of  Beatrice  Cenci,  one 
of  the  few  approaches  to  a  masterpiece 
of  this  subject,  and  one  of  the  most 
charming  works  of  this  rare  devotional 
master. 

It  is  impossible  to  find  any  Christ- 
childs  more  beautiful  than  Raphael's. 
His  Madonnas  do  not  seem  to  slight 
the  infant  as  so  many  of  the  other 
masters  do.  In  the  Virgin  and  In- 
fant in  the  National  Gallery,  in  the 
Madonna  del  Gran  Ducca  in  the  Pitti 
Palace,  in  the  Madonna  of  the  Cande- 
labra, also  in  the  National  Gallery,  in 
each  of  his  Holy  Families,  and  where- 
ever  the  Child  Jesus  is  introduced,  we 
have,  as  in  all  of  Raphael's  religious 
work,  a  type  that  is  beyond  all  praise, 
that  seems  to  carry  the  idea  to  its  far- 
thest embodiment  in  painting.    While  the 


62  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

special  expression  of  the  idea  of  divinity 
in  the  face  and  attitude  of  the  Babe  is 
never  strenuously  attempted  in  the  hand- 
ling, it  is  always  felt  in  the  fullest  sense 
through  the  lines  and  the  colouring.  The 
soul  is  uplifted  and  carried  away  above 
earthly  things  on  beholding  the  wonder- 
ful type  of  infant  loveliness,  both  in  the 
National  Gallery  pictures  and  in  the 
marvellous  Madonna  del  Gran  Ducca  at 
Florence. 

Murillo  painted  the  Christ-child  several 
times  with  wonderful  power  and  sweet- 
ness. The  example  here  given  is  part  of 
his  great  group  of  the  Holy  Family  in 
the  National  Gallery,  London. 

Single  pictures  of  the  Christ-child  are 
the  rarest  subjects  in  religious  painting. 
There  are  not  a  dozen  notable  ones  in 
the  whole  range  of  Art.  The  subject 
was  seldom  attempted,  for  the  simple 
reason   that   it   is   an   almost   impossible 


MuRiLLo.  —  Christ  -  child. 
(From  the  Holy  Family.) 


THE    CHRIST  -  CHILD.  65 

one  on   account  of  its  more  than    ideal 
character. 

Munier,  of  Paris,  has  recently  painted 
a  head  which  comes  as  near  fulfilling 
a  general  ideal  as  any  modern  attempt 
at  portraiture  of  the  infant  Saviour. 
This  was  exhibited  in  the  Paris  Salon  of 
1892,  and  gained  much  attention.  It  was 
promptly  reproduced,  and  is  now  quite 
well  known  in  this  country. 


III. 

CHRIST  AS  TEACHER  AND  HEALER 


¥ 


"  And  so  the  Word  had  flesh  and  wrought 
With  human  hands  the  creed  of  creeds, 
In  loveUness  of  perfect  deeds, 
More  strong  than  all  poetic  thought." 

—  Tennyson. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CHRIST   AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER. 

HERE  is  an  interregnum  in  the 

life  of  our  Lord,  from  the  day 

He  was  found   in   the   Temple 

among  the  Doctors,  for  a  long  stretch  of 

years  up  to  the  period  when  He  begins 

His  ministry. 

This  period  is  also  an  interregnum  in 

sacred   art,   with    one    or   two   very   rare 

exceptions.    The  treatment  of  this  interim 

must   necessarily   be   purely  imaginative, 

and  there  appear  to  be  naive  reasons  why 

it  never  appealed  to   the  masters  of  the 

Renaissance   or    the     Northern    schools. 

These   men,    working    under    the    direct 

counsel     and    often     command     of     the 
69 


70  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

Church,  were  content  to  do  the  things 
that  were  asked  of  them.  There  was 
little  motive  for  finding  imaginary  scenes 
wherewith  to  impress  religious  faith  on 
the  people.  And  very  few  of  the  masters, 
while  they  treated  classical  subjects  from 
the  heights  of  imaginative  inspiration,  ever 
attempted  to  handle  the  character  of  our 
Lord  in  a  like  manner.  Widely  as  the 
treatment  of  the  different  schools  has 
varied,  the  very  bone  of  the  sacred  text 
has  been  adhered  to  in  the  selection  of 
subjects. 

Holman  Hunt,  who  may  be  considered 
the  chief  exponent  of  the  pre-Raphaelite 
school,  has  given  us  the  notable  excep- 
tion in  his  celebrated  work.  The  Shadow 
of  Death,  in  which  the  youthful  Saviour 
is  represented  as  receiving  the  intimation 
of  Calvary  while  at  work  in  the  shop  of 
his  father,  the  carpenter.  Sir  John  Mjl- 
lais's    rather   curious   picture,   a  product 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER.      7 1 

of  his  pre-Raphaelite  days,  called  Christ 
in  the  House  of  His  Parents,  has  been 
engraved  and  is  more  or  less  widely 
known  in  England.  Mengelburg,  a  late 
German  artist,  has  a  picture  entitled  The 
Twelve-year-old  Christ  on  His  way  to  Jeru- 
salem, Accompanied  by  His  Parents.  The 
head  and  face  of  the  youthful  Saviour  here 
are  reminiscent  of  Hofmann's  Boy  Christ 
in  his  very  well  known  Disputation. 

Of  the  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist,  a 
direct  link  in  our  Lord's  life,  there  are 
a  great  number  of  compositions  by  the 
masters  from  the  beginning,  which  cannot, 
however,  be  discussed  here. 

The  baptism  of  our  Lord  follows  in 
natural  sequence  in  the  sacred  record. 
As  the  beginning  of  the  Saviour's  real 
life  work,  and  the  establishment  of  the 
rite  of  baptism,  common  to  every  Chris- 
tian denomination, —  no  matter  how  widely 
differing  in  creed,  —  it  was  and  will   re- 


72  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

main  of  the  greatest  significance.  That 
part  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  which 
was  dedicated  to  this  sacrament  was  called, 
from  the  earliest  times,  the  Baptistery. 
Here  the  representations  of  the  scene 
always  formed  the  key-note  of  the  decora- 
tions. Examples  still  exist  as  ancient  as 
the  Catacombs  of  Rome,  or  about  the 
third  century  of  the  Christian  era. 

There  is  no  single  instance  in  which  the 
growth  of  religious  art  can  be  traced  to 
better  advantage.  From  the  earliest 
mosaics,  through  the  Italian  and  the 
Northern  schools,  the  Baptism  may  be 
studied,  yet  while  nearly  all  the  great 
painters  attempted  it,  not  one  of  them 
seems  to  have  produced  an  acknowledged 
masterpiece  of  the  subject. 

Andrea  del  Robbia,  who  did  all  things 
well  in  sculpture,  has  a  fine  bas-relief  of 
the  scene,  which  may  be  seen  to-day  on 
the  baptismal  font  of  the  Church  of  Santa 


Verocchio.  —  Baptism  of  Christ  (detail). 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.      75 

Fiora,  in  Florence.  Perugino,  his  con- 
temporary, painted  the  Baptism  four  times. 
There  are  two  examples  each  by  Verocchio 
and  Paolo  Veronese.  Fra  Angelico  has 
three  examples.  The  scene  occupies  one  of 
the  panels  of  the  bronze  gates  of  Ghiberti. 
Raphael's  contribution  is  in  the  frescoes 
of  the  Loggia  in  the  Vatican. 

As  in  all  other  subjects  growing  out  of 
the  divine  narrative,  the  general  acclaim  is 
gradually  centred  on  one  or  two  particular 
representations.  The  picture  of  Cima  da 
ConegHano,  painted  in  1494  for  the  Church 
of  San  Giovanni  in  Bragora,  in  Venice, 
belongs  in  this  higher  class.  This  com- 
parative masterpiece  is  often  contrasted 
with  that  of  Giovanni  Bellini,  which  hangs 
in  the  Church  of  San  Corona  at  Vicenza. 
Thus  the  two  pictures  of  the  Baptism 
which  have  most  stamped  themselves  upon 
successive  generations  of  observers  are 
not  works  of  the  great  masters  nor  the 


76  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

product  of  the  leading  school,  an  anom- 
aly which  will  often  be  found  in  sacred  art. 

The  subject  has  even  occupied  the  at- 
tention of  American  artists.  Mr.  F.  V. 
Du  Mond,  who  has  rendered  several  scenes 
from  the  life  of  Christ  with  force  and 
originality,  has  a  Baptism  exhibited  some 
half-dozen  years  ago,  which  is  a  noteworthy 
effort  even  among  the  small  number  of 
religious  pictures  that  have  been  painted 
within  the  past  decade  in  America.  This 
is  fairly  well  known  through  reproduction 
in  periodicals. 

Of  the  Temptation  of  our  Lord,  that 
great  event  which  marks  the  parting  of 
the  ways.  His  voluntary  renunciation  of  the 
things  of  this  world,  there  have  been  like- 
wise a  great  range  and  variety  of  repre- 
sentations. 

As  introducing  the  figure  of  the  Evil 
One,  the  subject  was  found  to  be  of  marked 
difficulty  with  the  early  painters.    All  types 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER.      'J'J 

of  the  devil  are  found  in  these  first  studies, 
from  the  primitive  imp  of  the  earHest 
recorded  example,  which  indeed  takes  us 
back  to  the  seventh  century,  to  the  old 
man  with  a  Lear-like  aspect,  whom  Ghi- 
berti  chose  as  his  model.  One  of  the 
masterpieces  of  the  Renaissance  treatment 
of  the  theme  is  a  part  of  Botticelli's  con- 
tribution to  the  frescoes  of  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  in  which  he  laboured  with  Peru- 
gino  and  half  a  dozen  others  of  the  chief 
painters  of  the  time,  who  were  summoned 
to  Rome  by  the  Pope  for  the  work. 

Students  of  this  rare  creator  of  spiritual 
faces  and  forms  will  find  this  a  most 
interesting  example  of  his  craft.  The 
composition  is  a  very  naive  and  curious 
one.  One  looks  at  first  in  vain  for  the 
actual  scene  of  the  tempting,  which  Ary 
Scheffer  and  other  modern  painters  have 
set  forth  so  boldly.  The  eye  wanders 
amid  groups  of  interesting  figures,  with 


78  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

a  confused  sense  that  the  wrong  title  is 
attached  to  the  work ;  till  finally  far  up  in 
one  corner  the  Saviour  and  His  tempter 
are  discovered  on  the  "mountain," — in  this 
case  a  beetling  cliff  that  still  intrudes  very 
little  on  the  actual  scene.  The  observer 
at  once  realises  that  the  manner  of  this 
piece  is  the  obverse  of  the  usual  Tempta- 
tion. It  is  "  the  kingdoms  of  this  world, 
and  the  glory  of  them,"  that  Botticelli, 
with  a  fit  sense  of  the  decorative  motive, 
has  chosen,  albeit  there  is  a  constant 
subordination  to  the  ecclesiastical  in  the 
presentation  of  the  theme.  Every  part 
of  the  picture  is  a  reminder  of  the  Church 
and  her  rites.  It  is  full  of  portraits  of 
ecclesiastics,  and  the  Botticellian  type  of 
woman,  so  well  known  and  so  signally 
admired  since  the  advent  of  the  pre- 
Raphaelites,  figures  everywhere.  This  is 
the  largest,  most  crowded,  and  most 
important  fresco,  next  to  his  Assumption 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.      79 

painted  for  the  Church  of  San  Pietro 
Maggiore  and  now  in  England,  that 
Botticelli  ever  set  his  hand  to. 

Tintoretto  has  a  Temptation,  one  of 
the  series  of  frescoes  in  the  Church  of 
San  Rocco  at  Venice,  in  which  the  evil 
one  is  represented  as  "  an  angel  of  light," 
with  radiant  wings  and  "  an  armlet  of 
gleaming  jewels."  As  is  to  be  expected, 
the  figure  of  the  Christ  is  dominated  by 
this  remarkable  apparition,  and  the  moral, 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  none  of  the 
Venetian  masters  seem  to  have  sought 
too  carefully,  is  not  properly  exemplified, 
at  least  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  sense. 

There  are  very  few  pictures  of  the 
Temptation  throughout  the  whole  Renais- 
sance period.  Quite  untouched  in  paint- 
ing among  the  Northern  schools,  the  only 
important  picture  we  possess  to-day  is  an 
engraving  from  the  hand  of  Lucas  Van 
Leyden. 


8o  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

Among  modern  works  Ary  Scheffer's 
picture  is  a  very  satisfactory  rendering 
of  the  subject  to  the  general  observer. 
Professor  Hofmann,  who  has  treated 
the  scene  in  a  series  of  drawings,  follows 
closely  in  his  footsteps. 

Tissot  has  devoted  four  aquarelles  to 
the  story.  As  this  artist  has  taken  infinite 
pains  to  impress  the  religious  moral,  I 
will  describe  them  in  detail.  Christ  is 
first  seen  borne  through  mid-air  to  the 
mountain  by  the  shadowy  figure  of  the 
evil  spirit,  after  the  suggestion  of  the 
scene  given  by  Milton  in  his  "  Paradise 
Regained."  The  phantom-like  figure  of 
Evil  is  transformicd  in  the  second  scene 
into  an  ugly  old  man,  before  whom  our 
Lord  stands  looking  down  with  clasped 
hands  in  a  grotto  of  rock. 

A  third  transformation  of  the  devil  is 
effected  in  the  next  picture,  where  he 
is  represented  in  true  realistic  fashion,  as 


Ary  Scheffer.  —  The  Temptation  of  Christ. 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.     83 

"  a  great  bat-like  creature,"  with  a  horrible 
horned  face.  The  Christ  has  closed  His 
eyes  before  the  fearful  spectre  intended 
to  portray  the  Evil  One  in  full  power, 
and  stands  with  clasped  hands,  praying. 

Tissot's  fourth  picture  represents  the 
victory  of  the  Saviour,  who,  nevertheless, 
exhausted  by  the  conflict,  lies  prone  upon 
the  ground,  ministered  to  by  angels. 

Of  the  Marriage  at  Cana,  the  first  of 
the  miracles  of  our  Lord,  there  is  a  great 
picture  by  Tintoretto  in  the  Church  of 
Santa  Maria  della  Salute  in  Venice,  in 
which  the  splendour  and  boldness  of  this 
master's  imagination  find  the  amplest 
play.  The  scene  is  the  interior  of  a  rich 
and  noble  hall,  in  which  a  splendid  com- 
pany is  assembled  to  partake  of  the  mar- 
riage feast.  The  figures  of  the  Saviour 
and  His  mother  at  the  extreme  upper  end 
of  the  board  are  scarcely  distinguishable 
in  the  company  of   the   guests   and  the 


84  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

wealth  of  detail,  except  by  the  haloes 
which  encircle  their  heads.  The  idea 
that  a  miracle  is  transpiring  is  in  no 
sense  apparent  here. 

Veronese's  grand  painting  with  this 
title  hangs  in  the  Louvre,  and  once 
seen  is  not  likely  to  be  forgotten.  It  is 
a  superb  wedding-banquet  of  Venetian 
nobles.  Among  the  guests  are  figures  of 
Francis  I.,  and  Mary  of  England,  Eleanor 
of  Austria,  Charles  V.,  and  other  great 
personages  of  the  time.  The  extreme  of 
realistic  splendour  in  the  treatment  of  a 
Scriptural  subject  is  realised  in  this  great 
work. 

The  Northern  artists,  in  whom,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Dutch  school,  the 
religious  feeling  was  always  the  leading 
motive,  give  due  prominence  to  our  Lord 
in  the  scene. 

Among  the  many  contributions  of  Sir 
Edward  Burne-Jones   to  sacred  art   is  a 


H 

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O 

2 

Si 

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CHRIST  AS  TEACHER  AND  HEALER.  8y 

window-piece  of  the  Marriage  at  Cana,  at 
Biarritz,  France. 

The  first  recorded  act  which  can  be 
said  to  belong  to  Christ's  actual  ministry 
is  The  Cleansing  of  the  Temple.  Ghi- 
berti,  in  those  marvellous  gates  of  the 
Baptistery  at  Florence,  has  the  scene 
depicted  as  following  the  Temptation, 
hence  plainly  referring  to  the  first  Cleans- 
ing.^ 

The  subject  is  not  found  represented 
by  the  early  artists,  for  the  reason  that 
it  is  a  somewhat  difficult  test  as  a  study 
of  character,  a  phase  of  Art  which  began 
seriously  to  develop  only  with  the  high 
Renaissance. 

Some  of  the  earlier  painters  have  treated 
it,  however,  wholly  from  the  scenic  stand- 
point, the  Da  Pontes  of  Bassano,  a  family 
of  six  painters  who  belong  to  the  Venetian 

*  The  second  one,  it  will  be  remembered,  occurs  shortly 
after  Christ's  Entry  into  Jerusalem. 


88  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

school,  actually  going  so  far  as  to  make 
it  the  motive  of  cattle  pieces.  Examples 
of  these  curious  paintings  are  in  the 
National  Gallery  of  London  and  the  Bel- 
vedere, Vienna. 

Bonifazio  has  a  grand  picture  of  the 
subject  painted  for  the  vestibule  of  the 
Chapel  of  the  Ducal  Palace,  Venice, 
which  Mrs.  Jameson  describes  with  even 
more  than  her  usual  enthusiasm,'  and 
concludes  by  crowning  it,  with  some 
authority,  as  the  masterpiece  of  this 
charming  religious  painter. 

Rembrandt  etched  the  scene  with  the 
sincerity  and  vigour  that  is  characteristic 
of  him.  Christ  is  represented  as  wielding 
the  scourge  with  great  force  —  a  fright- 
ened throng  is  seen  escaping  on  all  sides 
from  this  strenuous  central  figure,  and 
some,  in  their  hurry  to  get  out  of  the  way, 
have  even  fallen  prostrate.     Says  a  recent 

' "  Sacred  and  Legendary  Art." 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.     89 

writer  on  sacred  art,  describing  this  work : 
"  A  single  touch  redeems  the  character 
-of  a  scene  which  would  otherwise  seem 
one  of  fierce  and  commonplace  anger. 
It  is  the  mysterious  halo  which  surrounds 
the  Saviour's  clasped  hands,  making  His 
figure  the  representation  of  holy  and 
consecrated  wrath." 

In  the  discourse  with  Nicodemus,  which 
follows  in  the  sacred  narrative,  we  find 
one  of  those  signal  changes  in  the  char- 
acter of  our  Lord,  which  make  of  Him 
the  many-sided  and  mysterious  character 
that  He  is.  A  fine  sense  of  the  value  of 
philosophical  reflection  is  presented  here 
in  contrast  to  the  scene  of  vigorous 
action  in  the  Temple. 

The  Northern  schools,  with  their  native 
genius  for  chiaroscuro,  the  product  of  long 
nights  and  early  lamp-lighted  evenings, 
seem  to  have  found  most  inspiration  in 
this  subject.     Franz  Francken  II.,  a  fine 


90  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

exponent  of  the  best  period  of  the  Flemish 
school,  has  an  example  in  the  Belvedere 
Gallery  at  Vienna. 

Both  Rembrandt  and  Rubens  tried  their 
hand  at  the  scene.  The  modern  Bible 
illustrators,  Bida  and  Tissot,  have  en- 
deavoured to  do  the  subject  justice,  offer- 
ing as  it  does  unusual  opportunities  for 
character  study.  In  the  frescoes  of  John 
La  Farge,  in  Trinity  Church,  Boston, 
Nicodemus  is  represented  as  propounding 
questions  to  Christ  from  a  scroll,  the 
Saviour  looking  down  upon  him  in  the 
attitude  of  a  careful  listener. 

The  Discourse  with  the  Samaritan 
Woman  at  the  Well  is  the  companion 
piece  in  the  decorations  of  Trinity,  which, 
taken  as  a  whole,  constitute  one  of  the  few 
really  notable  examples  of  religious  art  in 
the  United  States. 

This  episode  of  the  Samaritan  woman, 
which    is    related    only   by   the    Beloved 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.     9 1 

Disciple,  has  been  painted  a  great  many 
times.  From  Filippino  Lippi,  an  ex- 
ample which  shows  a  complete  sur- 
render to  the  influence  of  his  master, 
Botticelli  (the  picture  is  in  the  Semi- 
naris  at  Venice),  to  Burne-Jones,  the  sub- 
ject seems  to  have  been  common  as  an 
easel  picture.  It  was  a  fine  opportunity 
for  the  introduction  of  an  ideal  portrait 
of  the  Saviour,  with  a  completely  con- 
trasting type.  Burne-Jones's  work  is 
employed  as  the  centrepiece  of  a  win- 
dow in  the  Church  of  St.  Peters,  Vere 
Street,  London. 

Professor  Hofmann  presents  the  Christ 
in  an  attitude  of  seriousness  that  is  almost 
commanding  as  He  reproves  the  woman, 
whose  pagan  beauty,  in  contrast  with  the 
clarified  mien  of  the  Saviour,  suggests  at 
once  and  powerfully  the  contrast  between 
the  old  pagan  and  the  new  Christian  order 
of   things.     "  Behold !   I  make  all  things 


92  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

new,"  is  the  great  moral  message  of  this 
picture. 

Of  Wohlgemuth,  a  very  early  German 
painter,  who  was  a  part  of  that  period 
when  the  religious  spirit  had,  as  yet,  only 

"  Taught  Art  to  fold  her  hands  and  pray," 

there  is  preserved  to  us  in  a  wonderfully 
fresh  condition  a  picture  of  Christ  calling 
the  Apostles.  It  is  in  the  Pinakothek  at 
Munich.  The  landscape  is  of  mediaeval 
Germany,  with  a  river  and  churches  and 
castles  in  the  background.  The  Apostles 
are  dispersed  about  the  scene  in  such  un- 
couth attitudes  as  were  inevitable  with  the 
Middle  Age  Northern  painter.  But  the 
depth  of  serious  piety  in  the  countenances 
of  all  is  very  fine ;  and  the  face  and  figure 
of  the  Saviour  may  be  taken  as  the  very 
type  of  the  mediaeval  ascetic. 

Lord  Lindsay  says  of  the  few  known 
examples  of  this  painter  in  general,  that 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.     93 

"  the  powerful  and  deeply  seated  piety  of 
the  artist  has  printed  itself  on  his  work." 

Ghirlandajo,  who  was  one  of  the  little 
group  of  the  best  painters  in  Italy  sum- 
moned by  Pope  Sixtus  to  Rome,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  for 
the  great  task  of  decorating  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  was  apportioned  the  calling  of 
Peter  and  Andrew  and  the  sons  of  Zebe- 
dee,  the  scene  including  also  the  Miracu- 
lous Draught  of  Fishes,  as  his  share  of 
the  work. 

By  the  old  masters  the  calling  of  James 
and  John  and  the  Miraculous  Draught  of 
Fishes  were  often  depicted  as  one  and  the 
same  scene.  This  is  one  of  the  subjects 
of  which  that  treasure-store  of  earliest 
religious  art,  the  mosaics  of  San  Apolli- 
nare  Nuovo  at  Ravenna,  furnishes  an 
example,  in  the  most  primitive  style,  of 
course. 

In   the   series   of    Raphael's    cartoons, 


94  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

made  for  the  tapestries  of  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  and  now  a  treasured  possession 
of  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  there 
is  a  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes.  Only 
the  actual  scene  of  the  miracle  is  treated. 
It  is  to  my  mind  a  highly  decorative 
piece  for  a  Scriptural  scene,  —  not  in  any 
special  sense  outre^  however,  when  con- 
sidered as  the  basis  for  a  tapestry  — 
never  an  important  medium  for  religious 
work,  —  in  which  three  large  storks  in  the 
foreground  appear  to  be  introduced  chiefly 
as  picturesque  accessories.  The  design 
is  full  of  the  physical  meaning  of  the 
miracle.  The  brawny-armed  Apostles, 
drawing  in  the  bursting  nets,  play  the 
chief  part  in  the  general  character  of  the 
scene. 

Rubens  has  a  Miraculous  Draught  full 
of  life  and  action,  done  in  his  usual  heroic 
style.  It  is,  as  is  often  the  case  with 
Rubens,  a  great  picture  with  very  Httle 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.     95 

religious  feeling  in  it,  although  the  figure 
of  the  Christ  is  depicted  with  some  atten- 
tion to  the  ideal  attributes  of  the  Saviour. 

Gaspard  de  Craeyer,  another  Flemish 
painter,  and  a  contemporary  of  Rubens, 
who  somewhat  shows  the  master's  influ- 
ence, painted  a  Miraculous  Draught  which 
is  among  the  treasured  examples  of  the 
early  Flemish  school  in  the  Museum  at 
Brussels. 

There  was  an  important  example  of  the 
subject  painted  by  Jouvenet  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  eighteenth  century  for  a  new 
Roman  Catholic  Church  in  Paris,  which 
has  found  its  way  to  the  great  French 
National  Gallery,  and  now  hangs  in  the 
Louvre.  The  attitude  and  figure  of  the 
Saviour  in  this  work  dominate  the  scene, 
whereas  in  the  pictures  of  Raphael  and 
Rubens  it  is  only  an  impressive  part  of  it. 

Among  the  vast  decorative  undertak- 
ings of   Sir  Edward   Burne-Jones  is  the 


96  CHRIST    IN   ART. 

three-light  window  in  the  new  Ferry 
Church,  at  Cheshire,  England,  in  which 
the  three  subjects,  Christ  Preaching  from 
the  Ship,  The  Miraculous  Draught,  and 
The  Abnegation  of  Simon  Peter,  have 
each  a  separate  space. 

Tissot,  with  his  customary  fullness  in 
treating  the  sacred  narrative,  has  a  pic- 
ture of  the  Preaching  from  the  Ship, 
one  of  the  least  often  handled  of  all  the 
scenes,  and  he  has  also  depicted  the 
Healing  of  the  Demoniac  in  the  Syna- 
gogue, according  to  both  versions,  that 
of  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke,  though  they 
do  not  differ  substantially. 

Of  the  general  healing  of  the  sick  there 
are  many  passages  scattered  through  the 
sacred  record.  Matthew  has  six  scenes 
of  this  kind  in  the  first  half  of  his  Gospel. 
This,  the  most  immediate  direct  evidence 
of  our  Lord's  divine  power,  was  mani- 
fested, more  or  less,  wherever  He  went. 


CHRIST  AS  TEACHER  AND  HEALER.   97 

and  there  have  been  many  pictures  de- 
voted to  each  one  of  the  miracles. 

The  theme  as  a  whole  was  selected  by 
Rembrandt  for  a  remarkable  etching,  The 
Hundred  Guilders  Plate,  so  called  be- 
cause that  was  the  price  the  artist  asked 
for  the  work  when  with  great  care  and 
pains  he  had  finished  it.  It  represents 
the  sick  in  various  conditions,  coming  to 
Jesus  in  numbers.  The  figure  of  the 
Saviour  is  commanding,  but  the  chief 
interest,  as  in  others  of  Rembrandt's  re- 
ligious works,  consists  rather  in  the  care- 
ful sincerity  with  which  he  has  wrought 
out  the  varied  details  of  the  scene. 

Jouvenet,  who  decorated  the  Church 
of  St.  Martin  des  Champs  in  Paris,  about 
the  year  1700,  and  whose  work  is  impor- 
tant enough  to  have  been  transferred  and 
preserved  in  the  Louvre,  has  a  picture 
showing  Christ  healing  the  multitude  on 
the   shores   of   the    Lake  of   Gennesaret. 


98  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

This  was  one  of  four  pictures  painted  by 
the  artist  for  this  church,  all  of  which 
have  been  hung  in  the  French  National 
Gallery. 

Overbeck,  the  leader  of  the  strange 
band  of  mystics  who  endeavoured  to 
dominate  modern  religious  feeling  in 
Germany  at  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century,  has  an  impressive  composition 
devoted  to  this  grand  theme  in  his  Gospel 
series.  It  seeks  to  convey  the  important 
idea  of  the  individual  and  tender  ministry 
of  the  Divine  Healer  to  each  case  of 
suffering,  a  note  that  is  too  much  neg- 
lected in  general  pictures  of  the  series. 

Zimmerman,  following  the  example  of 
several  modern  German  realists  in  the 
treatment  of  sacred  subjects,  brings  the 
scene  into  an  every-day  modern  home 
of  the  poor.  Representations  of  such  a 
character,  of  which  examples  have  mul- 
tiplied   during    the    latter    half    of    the 


HoLMAN  Hunt.  —  The  Light  of  the  World. 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.   lOI 

nineteenth  century,  are  always  very  im- 
pressive, and  seem  to  have  exercised  an 
important  influence  in  later  religious  feel- 
ing. Ary  Scheffer's  Christus  Consolator, 
a  great  work  of  modern  sacred  painting, 
belongs  to  this  class. 

Hofmann  has  an  impressive  picture  in 
this  general  series,  Behold !  I  Stand  at 
the  Door  and  Knock.  This  artist  gives 
us  the  same  type  of  Christ  throughout, — 
benignant,  sweet,  calm,  merciful.  It  is 
an  ideal  that  has  stirred  the  heart  of 
modern  Germany,  particularly  among  the 
lower  classes,  and  is  indeed  one  of  those 
representations  that  have  contributed  gen- 
uinely to  religious  feeling  in  our  own 
time. 

The  Light  of  the  World  of  Holman 
Hunt  is  one  of  the  great  religious  pic- 
tures of  all  time,  possessing  a  deep  and 
purposeful  quality  that  can  only  be  realised 
by  careful  contemplation. 


I02  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

Professor  Hofmann,  with  wonderful  ver- 
satility, has  not  only  given  us  scenes  from 
the  actual  record  of  the  Saviour's  life,  but, 
as  in  his  Omnipresence  of  Christ,  has 
endeavoured  objectively  to  instil  religious 
lessons.  This  is  a  fine  character  study, 
representing  a  fifteenth  century  burgher 
reading  the  Bible  to  his  family,  with  an 
apparition  of  the  Redeemer  appearing 
in  the  background  and  blessing  the  scene. 
The  invitation  to  observe  and  reflect 
upon  the  subjective  effect  of  the  Divine 
Presence  in  each  of  the  contrasting  types 
is  instantly  felt  by  the  beholder,  which 
is  the  great  service  the  painter  sought  to 
render  to  religion. 

In  his  Raising  of  the  Daughter  of 
Jairus,  Christ  is  seen  in  a  commanding 
attitude  standing  over  the  bed  of  the 
invalid  with  his  right  arm  raised.  To  the 
ultra-modern  sense  there  would  seem  to 
be  an  impression  of   hypnotic  power  in 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER.    IO3 

the  central  figure  which  awakens  the  pale 
maiden  to  life,  and  the  feeling  is  empha- 
sised by  the  astonishment  and  rapture 
of  her  parents  at  the  bedside. 

Hofmann's  Mary  Anointing  the  Feet  of 
Jesus  is,  perhaps,  the  least  successful  of 
his  great  Bible  series.  There  is  a  quaint 
sense  of  something  strained  in  the  attitude 
of  all  present,  that  is  foreign  to  his  general 
treatment  of  character.  The  beholder  is 
not  charmed  out  of  himself  into  a  naive, 
religious  atmosphere  as  in  the  other  pic- 
tures. 

In  his  Come  unto  Me,  a  single  figure 
of  the  Saviour,  looking  out  at  the  spec- 
tator with  outstretched  hands,  he  has 
produced  an  ideal  of  the  Christ  that  is 
well  calculated  to  satisfy  the  popular  heart 
of  a  generation,  and  has  taken  its  place  in 
the  gallery  of  classical  ideals  of  the  Son 
of  Man.  . 

The  Visit  of  the  Centurion,  of  Paolo 


I04  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

Veronese,  is  in  the  Madrid  Gallery.  This 
is  a  crowded  composition,  showing  at  its 
best  the  grand  manner  of  the  Venetian 
school.  The  Christ  has  the  cultured  look 
of  a  doctor  of  philosophy,  a  product  of  the 
schools  of  the  most  finished  type.  A  sense 
of  cultivated  worldliness  dominates  His  ex- 
pression, as,  with  hand  uplifted.  He  bids 
the  Ruler  rise.  The  Ruler  is  painted  after, 
or  more  likely  directly  from,  a  Venetian 
noble.  The  group  of  the  Apostles  at  the 
left  is  likewise  studied  from  contemporaries 
of  the  painter.  A  portrait  of  a  dignitary 
of  the  Catholic  Church  is  among  them. 
The  Ruler's  retinue,  including  soldiers  in 
armour,  black  servants,  and  a  magnificent 
charger,  forms  a  little  panorama  filling  the 
right  half  of  the  picture.  This  is  one  of 
Veronese's  great  canvases.  No  less  than 
three  other  presentations  of  the  subject, 
attributed  to  the  same  master,  hang  in  the 
galleries  of  Dresden,  Vienna,  and  Munich. 


Baroccio.  —  The  Saviour. 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.    IO7 

Rubens's  Christ  and  the  Magdalen,  in 
the  Pinakothek  at  Munich,  is  in  all  essen- 
tial qualities  an  unmistakable  product  of 
this  master  hand.  None  of  his  women 
are  more  finely  portrayed  than  the  mag- 
nificent Magdalen  shown  here,  while  his 
Christ  fulfils  that  ideal  of  the  Saviour, 
which  is  not  the  ideal  simply  of  a  day  and 
generation,  in  an  unexampled  degree  for 
this  painter.  The  treatment  of  the  other 
three  male  figures  introduced  in  the  com- 
position combines  to  make  the  picture  a 
masterpiece. 

Baroccio's  II  Salvatore,  an  ideal  head  of 
the  Saviour  preserved  in  the  Pitti  Gallery, 
at  Florence,  is  an  interesting  and  some- 
what striking  example  of  the  early  Italian 
school,  and  has,  no  doubt,  found  a  per- 
manent place  in  the  memory  of  thousands 
of  visitors.  The  beautifully  soft,  sustained 
colouring  does  much  to  make  it  remem- 
bered. 


I08  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

In  the  Jesus  Taking  Counsel  with  His 
Mother,  also  in  the  Pitti  Gallery,  it  is 
noticeable  that  Veronese  has  given  us 
exactly  the  same  figure  of  the  Saviour,  with 
but  slightly  altered  expression,  while  the 
position  of  the  right  hand  with  which  he 
makes  the  gesture  is  identical  with  that 
of  the  Christ  in  the  Healing  of  the  Cen- 
turion's Servant.  This  is  not  by  any 
means  rare  among  the  old  masters,  who 
usually  changed  types  a  little,  but  only 
enough  to  give  some  slight  sense  of 
variety.  None  of  the  works  of  this,  the 
greatest  exponent  of  the  true  Venetian 
school,  are  of  much  help  as  an  inspiration 
to  religious  sentiment,  as  it  is  commonly 
felt  in  our  own  day. 

For  grandeur  of  manner,  Paolo  Vero- 
nese is  without  a  peer.  He  endeavoured 
to  render  the  double  service  to  art  of 
perpetuating  the  splendour  of  The  Bride 
of  the  Sea  and  the  motive  of  the  divine 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER.    IO9 

legend.  The  avowed  purpose  of  the 
Venetian  school,  however,  is  never  irrelig- 
ious. In  their  pride  in  the  splendour  of 
their  own  time,  a  splendour  which  was 
largely  consecrated  to  the  Faith,  its  great 
exponents  unquestionably  had  the  right 
to  feel  the  necessity  of  treating  the  sacred 
motive  from  a  contemporary  standpoint. 

To  their  own  people,  the  works  of 
Giorgione,  of  Titian,  of  Tintoretto,  and 
of  Veronese,  to  name  only  the  leaders  of 
this  school,  undoubtedly  were,  and  have 
remained  through  several  centuries,  a 
genuine  guide  to  religious  inspiration. 
Nor  is  it  possible  for  the  stranger  to 
study  them  seriously  in  their  setting  in 
the  churches  of  Venice  to-day  without 
becoming  more  and  more  impressed  with 
a  sense  of  their  consecrated  purpose. 

Of  The  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery, 
there  is  a  painting  by  Rocco  Marconi  in 
the  Corsini  Gallery,  in  Rome,  which  was 


no  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

long  ascribed  to  Titian.  It  is  painted 
with  marked  seriousness  and  depth  of 
feeling.  The  faces  of  Christ  and  the 
adulteress  in  the  scene  are  subordinate  in 
these  important  qualities,  a  blemish,  how- 
ever, which  serves  further  to  distinguish 
them  from  the  group  of  accusers,  two  of 
whom  grasp  the  downcast  creature  with 
brawny  arms.  The  variety  of  expression 
combining  in  unity  of  sentiment  in  this 
group  of  accusers,  however,  makes  this  a 
fine  example  of  the  general  handling  of  the 
lesser  examplars  of  the  Venetian  school. 

Wonderful  is  the  intensity  of  interest, 
the  sense  of  the  unfolding  of  a  miracle,  in 
the  chief  figures  in  Giotto's  representation 
of  the  Raising  of  Lazarus.  With  ascetic 
realism  is  the  text  adhered  to.  Lazarus 
"  comes  forth  "  literally  "  bound  hand  and 
foot  with  grave-clothes "  and  presents  in 
himself  the  miracle  of  a  man  standing 
erect  and  yet  swathed  to  the  point  that 


CHRIST   AS   TEACHER   AND    HEALER.    Ill 

movement  is  manifestly  impossible.  Con- 
siderations of  natural  laws,  however,  are 
quite  lost  in  the  strong  dramatic  sense 
that  the  whole  rendering  of  the  scene 
awakens  in  the  spectator.  This  is  part  of 
the  mighty  series  of  frescoes  in  the  Chapel 
of  the  Arena  at  Padua. 

Curious  are  some  representations  of 
certain  scenes  in  the  life  of  our  Saviour, 
which  have  for  long  hung  in  the  Berlin 
Gallery  under  the  classification  of  "  Un- 
known Masters."  One  of  these  is  a 
Transfiguration  after  the  general  type  of 
Raphael's,  in  which  the  painter  seems  to 
have  exhausted  his  invention  in  distrib- 
uting grotesque  attitudes  of  astonish- 
ment, fear,  and  wonder  to  the  figures 
grouped  about  and  gazing  up  at  the  as- 
cending Saviour.  There  is  a  rare  mixture 
of  types  of  individuals,  ranging  from  an 
old  crone  to  a  court  dandy.  A  good  deal 
of  correct  drawing  in  this  picture,  never- 


112  CHRIST    IN   ART. 

theless,  some  very  fine  rendering  of  cos- 
tume, and  a  certain  sense  of  power  in  the 
whole  composition,  have  contributed  to 
preserve  it  for  incognito  fame. 

The  Transfiguration  is  peculiarly  sacred 
in  Art  because  to  it  was  consecrated  the 
greatest  work  of  the  greatest  painter  of 
all  time.  The  gentle  spirit  of  Raphael 
suspired  in  the  production  of  what  is  be- 
fore all  the  most  ideal  event  in  the  life  of 
our  Lord.  There  is  no  conception  in  the 
realm  of  Art,  no  theme  that  can  be  im- 
agined by  the  mortal  mind,  that  is  higher. 
And  it  is  the  fitting  crown  of  the  half- 
divine  life  of  Raphael  that  he  died  while 
attempting  to  portray  it. 

As  to  the  merits  of  his  Transfiguration 
(in  the  Vatican),  there  has  been,  and  will 
always  continue  to  be,  much  discussion. 
The  general  sentiment,  however,  hails  it 
as  the  world's  masterpiece,  and  till  the 
Christian    religion    is    enrolled    with    the 


Raphael.  —  Transfiguration. 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.    II5 

creeds  of  the  past  it  will  probably  so 
remain. 

"  From  harmony ;  from  heavenly  harmony, 
This  universal  frame  began, 
The  diapason  ending  full  in  man." 

Thus  sings  Dryden ;  and  there  is  an 
ineffable  sense  of  harmony  in  the  genius 
of  Raphael  that  lifts  him  nearest  of  all 
painters  to  the  divine  essence.  Despite 
the  incongruity  of  the  groupings,  despite 
the  cavillings  at  the  attitudes  of  the 
prophets,  and  the  stigmatisation  of  Taine, 
who  declares  that  the  poise  of  the  Christ 
is  that  of  a  swimmer  "  striking  out,"  the 
work  possesses  a  quality  above  and  beyond 
all  praise  or  criticism.  It  is  to  the  glory 
of  Art  and  the  pride  of  Christendom 
that  the  colouring  remains,  for  the  most 
part,  almost  as  fresh  to-day  as  when  it 
was  painted,  nearly  four  hundred  years 
ago. 


Il6  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

Other  masterpieces  have  faded,  but  the 
Transfiguration  glows  as  though  it  had 
been  given  the  dying  painter  to  endow 
his  last  work  with  immortal  youth.  As 
sacred  art  is  the  crown  of  all  art,  so  this 
is  the  crown  of  all  sacred  art.  It  is  the 
Mecca  of  the  traveller  from  every  bourne 
of  Christendom,  and  he  draws  near  after 
long  journeyings  to  its  resting-place  in 
the  Vatican,  with  a  feeling  little  less  than 
an  actual  realisation  of  the  Sacred 
Presence. 

The  writer  does  not  attempt  to  record 
here  personal  impressions,  although  he 
well  remembers  his  own  visit  to  the  pic- 
ture. It  is  the  verdict  of  Christendom 
and  of  Art,  despite  all  great  authorities 
to  the  contrary,  that  I  have  here  set 
down. 

In  the  earliest  art  there  are  no  Trans- 
figurations. The  subject  was  quite  too 
ideal   for   the   spirit   of   the    Gothic   and 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.    II7 

Byzantine  periods.  It  is  indeed  utterly 
ideal  in  every  aspect,  ideal  though  every 
scene  in  the  life  of  our  Lord  must  be. 
The  monks  drew  it  occasionally  in  the 
missals,  but  the  first  great  painter,  Giotto, 
wisely  held  his  hand  from  it.  Ghiberti, 
who  seems  to  have  attempted  all  things 
in  his  bronze  gates,  has  a  scene.  Fra 
Angelico,  that  man  of  God,  could  not  be 
restrained  from  setting  his  hand  to  it,  but 
the  intention  outruns  the  performance. 

The  Renaissance  painters  generally  did 
not  attempt  the  theme.  The  gorgeous 
imagination  of  the  Venetian  school,  how- 
ever, was  naturally  tempted,  and  there 
are  examples  from  the  hand  of  Lorenzo 
Lotto,  very  unideal  in  expression,  in 
the  Municipio  at  Recanti;  of  Bellini,  in 
the  Correr  Museum  at  Venice;  and  of 
Pennachi,  now  in  the  Academy  of  Fine 
Arts  at  Venice. 

Titian  restrained  his  hand  till  old  age 


Il8  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

had  brought  him  near  the  period  of  his 
own  apotheosis,  and  at  eighty-nine  he 
painted  the  Transfiguration.  It  was  a 
task  of  ardour  to  this  great  soul,  —  per- 
haps of  necessity, — rather  than  of  accom- 
plishment, however.  Tintoretto  painted 
it  (Church  of  S.  Afria,  Brescia),  and  Peru- 
gino,  and  though  here  is  a  short  roll  of 
great  masters,  it  is  a  notable  fact  that 
none  of  their  works  challenge  for  an  in- 
stant the  general  fame  of  Raphael's  mas- 
terpiece. 

Ford  Madox  Brown  is  the  only  rela- 
tively important  modern  name  which  is 
connected  with  this  subject,  his  work  being 
a  memorial  window  in  a  church  in  England. 

The  theme  appears  to  be  above  the 
inspiration  of  latter-day  imagination,  as 
indeed  it  has  remained  for  several  cen- 
turies. The  subject  of  the  Woman  Taken 
in  Adultery  seems,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
have  been  especially  prolific  of  represen- 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER.    II9 

tation.  I  will  not  attempt  to  trace  the 
moral  causes  which  point  the  fact,  but 
simply  content  myself  by  quoting  the 
general  remark  of  a  very  recent  authority, 
that  "  no  subject  from  Christ's  life,  origi- 
nating in  this  period,  is  at  all  comparable 
with  those  of  longer  standing  as  an  ex- 
ponent of  sacred  sentiment." ' 

It  is  unquestionably  characteristic  that 
the  most  important  examples  are  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  Venetian  school.  Lorenzo 
Lotto  painted  the  scene  twice,  and  in  ex- 
tenso,  his  compositions  containing  no  less 
than  seventeen  figures.  The  paintings  are 
in  Loreto  and  the  Louvre,  Paris.  The 
subject  is  attributed  to  Titian,  but  none 
of  the  works  are  absolutely  authentic, 
which  is  perhaps  to  be  wondered  at. 
Tintoretto's  robust  imagination  and  strong 
hand  seem  to  have  revelled  in  it,  and 
there  are  three  brilliant  examples,  —  one 

»  Estelle  M.  Hurll,  "  The  Life  of  Our  Lord  in  Art. 


I20  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

each  in  the  Venice  Academy,  in  the  Dres- 
den Galleries,  and  in  the  Archbishop's 
Palace  at  Milan. 

The  art  of  Northern  Europe  of  the 
cotemporary  period  furnishes  several 
examples,  chief  of  which  are  those  by 
Franz  Francken  II.,  in  the  Dresden  Gal- 
lery, and  two  by  the  great  realist,  Cranach, 
one  in  the  Dresden  collection,  and  the 
other  in  the  Munich  Gallery.  Rubens 
and  Rembrandt  found  a  natural  enough 
inspiration  in  the  subject.  The  work  of 
the  former  is  in  the  collection  at  Leigh 
Court,  England,  while  that  of  Rembrandt 
is  in  the  National  Gallery,  London. 

Poussin,  the  most  important  early  influ- 
ence in  French  art,  —  indeed  the  founder 
of  the  academic  tradition, — painted  an 
important  picture  which  is  now  in  the 
Louvre,  Paris,  as  are  most;  of  the  great 
works  of  this  painter. 

Modern  painters  have  been  attracted  by 


Titian.  —  Head  of  Christ. 
(From  Christ  and  the  Adulteress.) 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.    1 23 

the  aesthetic  quality  of  the  scene,  the  most 
important  renderings  being  by  Siemi- 
radzki,  by  Otto  Wolff,  and  by  Domenico 
Morelli,  and  it  is  also  included  in  the 
Bible  Series  of  Bida,  and  our  latest  im- 
portant religious  master,  Tissot. 

Hofmann's  treatment  of  the  Adulteress 
scene  is  impressive.  The  woman  on  the 
ground  in  an  attitude  of  submission,  and 
yet  with  a  certain  disdain  of  her  accusers 
in  her  face,  is  at  once  seen  to  be  beautiful. 
The  accusers  are  a  dignified  lot  of  old 
men,  and  not  the  semi-rabble  that  Titian 
portrays.  The  figure  of  the  Saviour  is 
grand  in  its  sense  of  appeal  as  it  points 
to  the  poor  creature  prostrate  at  his  feet. 
The  idea  of  an  informal  tribunal  whose 
only  intention  is  calm  justice  is  the  key- 
note of  the  whole  composition. 

The  Raising  of  Lazarus,  as  might  be 
expected  from  the  dramatic  value  of  the 
legend,  has  been  a  favourite  subject  with 


124  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

painters  of  all  periods.  I  have  already 
referred  to  Giotto's  picture.  Here  again 
it  is  the  roll-call  of  the  great  names  in  Art 
that  must  be  answered  to.  To  mention 
a  scant  few  of  the  most  notable  efforts, 
that  of  Rembrandt  occurs  at  once.  A 
painting  of  the  subject  by  him  is  now  in 
the  collection  of  Mr.  Charles  M.  Yerkes, 
of  New  York;  but  the  much  better  known 
work  is  the  etching  which  bears  the  date 
of  1633.  The  greatest  genius  in  chiar- 
oscuro whom  the  world  has  produced 
found  his  best  opportunity  among  sacred 
subjects  in  the  contrasting  lights  and 
shadows  of  this  sepulchral  theme.  Un- 
forgetable  to  all  who  have  seen  even  a 
respectable  reproduction  of  the  engraving, 
is  the  remarkable  quality  of  the  work  in 
this  genre.  The  blackness  of  the  sur- 
soundings,  the  figure  of  Lazarus  revived, 
—  alive,  —  rising  out  of  the  great  light 
reflected   from   the   divine   figure  of  the 


CHRIST  AS  TEACHER  AND  HEALER.  1 25 

Saviour!  The  composition  is  entirely 
sane,  yet  mystic  and  miraculous  to  a  degree 
unapproached  by  other  delineators  of  the 
scene. 

Benjamin  West,  the  first  American 
genius  in  painting,  made  a  picture  not 
long  after  his  departure  to  England  as  an 
altar-piece  for  the  Manchester  Cathedral. 
Henry  O.  Tanner,  an  American  painter, 
has  given  us  a  striking  modern  realistic 
presentation  of  the  subject,  —  a  picture 
which  has  recently  been  bought  by  the 
French  government  and  is  now  in  the 
Luxembourg. 

Elihu  Vedder,  the  most  important  sym- 
bolic painter  that  America  has  produced, 
has  done  a  remarkable  single  head  of 
Lazarus,  owned  by  Melville  E.  Stone,  of 
Chicago. 

As  Canon  Farrar  succinctly  remarks,' 
"  pictures  from  the  parables  do  not  prop- 

»  "  The  Life  of  Christ  in  Art."     London,  1894. 


126  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

erly  belong  to  the  life  of  Christ."  There 
are,  nevertheless,  examples  as  early  as  the 
mosaics  of  San  Apollinare  Nuovo  (Ra- 
venna). Of  the  tale  of  the  Prodigal  Son 
there  are  pictures  from  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  times.  The  Good  Samaritan  has 
been  often  treated,  and  the  moral  of  the 
Wise  and  Foolish  Virgins  has  been  ren- 
dered on  canvas  to  the  enlightenment  and 
instruction  of  all  generations.  A  very 
well  known  picture  of  the  latter  legend 
is  that  by  Piloty,  the  father  of  the  modern 
Munich  school,  which  has  recently  been 
exhibited  in  this  country. 

Our  own  William  M.  Hunt  has  a  grand 
picture  of  the  Return  of  the  Prodigal  in 
the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts.  Fubri- 
fe's  painting  in  three  panels  is  perhaps 
as  well  known,  through  constant  reproduc- 
tion during  the  past  twenty  years,  as  any 
picture  ever  drawn  from  the  sacred  legend. 

The  Feast  of  Dives,  as  a  rendering  of 


CHRIST   AS    TEACHER   AND    HEALER.    1 27 

the  story  of  Dives  and  Lazarus,  offered 
unexampled  opportunities  for  the  splen- 
dour of  style  that  was  the  hall-mark  of 
the  Venetian  school.  Teniers,  whose  pic- 
ture readily  occurs  in  this  connection,  has 
a  fantastic  and  peculiar  example  which 
is  in  the  National  Gallery,  London.  This 
important  early  Dutch  master,  of  whom 
it  has  been  remarked  that  nothing  in  the 
life  of  his  own  country  escaped  him, 
seems,  nevertheless,  to  have  cared  for 
certain  religious  subjects,  although  the 
general  student  of  his  work  would  be  at 
a  considerable  loss  to  trace  his  direct 
inspiration. 

When  we  consider  the  moral  impor- 
tance of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and 
the  estimation  in  which  this  discourse  of 
our  Lord's  is  held  in  modern  times,  it  is 
somewhat  disappointing  to  record  its  very 
scant  treatment  in  religious  painting. 
There  are  only  one  or  two  early  examples 


128  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

and  these  of  but  little  moment.  A  single, 
well-known  picture  of  the  subject  of  the 
seventeenth  century  is  a  large  canvas  by 
Claude  Lorraine,  now  in  the  Grosvenor 
Gallery,  London.  Bida  alone,  of  all  the 
nineteenth  century  Bible  illustrators,  in- 
cluded the  scene  in  his  series.  Von 
Uhde's  picture  is  the  only  strictly  modern 
representation,  and  it  is  sincere  and  im- 
pressive to  the  degree  of  power,  as  are 
all  the  religious  works  of  this  master.  It 
seems  to  be,  indeed,  the  only  existing 
work  of  genuine  importance  devoted  to 
the  theme. 

There  is  no  scene  in  the  life  of  our 
Lord  that  is  dearer  to  all  humanity  than 
that  one  contained  in  the  touching  ac- 
count of  Mark,  beginning,  "  And  they 
brought  young  children  to  him  that  he 
should  touch  them."  It  was  the  Teu- 
tonic races,  with  their  strong  sentiment 
for  the  home,  who  seemed  first  to  have 


MuRiLLO.  —  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or   Miracle 
OF  THE  Loaves  and  Fishes  (detail). 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER.    I3I 

recognised  the  beauty  of  the  theme.  The 
ItaHan  schools,  indeed,  do  not  furnish  a 
single  noteworthy  example.  The  Gospel 
Book  of  Munich,  one  of  the  early  missals, 
furnishes  the  first  known  example.  The 
first  important  paintings  are  by  Lucas  Cra- 
nach  (the  elder).  There  are  two,  one  in 
the  Northbrook  collection  in  England, 
and  another  in  the  Stadtkirche,  at  Naum- 
burg,  bearing  the  early  date  of  1529. 
Cranach  had  these  pictures  copied  again 
in  his  own  studio,  as  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  an  authentic  copy  exists  to-day 
in  the  Dresden  Gallery. 

A  certain  Vincenz  Sillaer,  a  contempo- 
rary of  Cranach,  is  known  to  fame  only 
through  his  picture  of  Christ  Blessing 
Little  Children.  It  hangs  in  the  Mu- 
nich Gallery,  and  the  legend  attached  to 
it  in  the  catalogue  is  that  it  is  the  only 
existing  work  of  the  artist. 

Adam  Van   Noort,  the  first  master  of 


132  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

Rubens,  has  a  picture  which  is  preserved 
in  the  Museum  at  Brussels,  and  there  is  a 
painting  in  the  National  Gallery,  London, 
of  which  the  original  ascription  to  Rem- 
brandt has  of  late  years  become  quite  leg- 
endary. 

With  the  growth  of  European  civilisa- 
tion, the  love  and  care  of  children  has 
become  a  matter  of  increasing  solicitude, 
and  the  subject  has  grown  correspond- 
ingly popular.  The  school  of  Overbeck 
devoted  some  attention  to  it  early  in  the 
century.  It  will  be  readily  recalled  among 
the  works  of  Benjamin  West,  a  picture 
full  of  human  feeling,  but  lacking  in  ob- 
vious points  of  composition. 

Sir  Charles  Eastlake's  painting  of  the 
subject  is  well  known.  A  recent  authority 
says  of  its  origin :  "  The  painting  was 
received  by  contemporary  critics  (1839) 
with  an  enthusiasm  amounting  to  a  per- 
fect furore.    The  artist  was  freely  likened 


CHRIST    AS    TEACHER    AND    HEALER.    1 33 

to  the  greatest  masters  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  and  no  praise  was  thought 
too  high  for  his  work.  If  the  calmer 
judgment  of  later  criticism  has  modified 
this  extravagant  estimate,  it  is  still  true 
that  the  picture  is  one  of  the  best  of  the 
subject  ever  painted." ' 

Fritz  Von  Uhde  has  handled  the  sub- 
ject in  that  extreme  realistic  style  in 
which  he  endeavours  to  render  the  sacred 
message.  His  work  is  always  subjective 
to  the  last  degree  in  that  not  the  least  of 
the  symbols  of  the  faith  are  introduced. 
He  is  the  very  antithesis  of  Giotto  and 
the  first  religious  painters.  In  the  Christ 
Blessing  Little  Children,  a  stranger,  a 
man  of  the  lower  middle  classes  attired  in 
the  every-day  garb  of  German  civilisation, 
has  entered  a  schoolroom,  and  seated 
himself  in  the  midst  of  the  children,  who 
are    being    gradually   won    over    by   his 

»Estelle  M.  Hurll,  "  The  Life  of  Our  Lord  in  Art." 


134  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

presence  and  manner.  It  is  as  ample  a 
treatment  as  the  theme  can  well  receive, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  simplest  one 
possible. 

Such  work  as  this  of  Von  Uhde  and 
other  modern  masters  seeks  to  blend 
religion  with  human  sentiment  so  as  to 
reach  the  ideal  of  which  Christ  spoke 
when  he  said,  "  I  and  the  Father  are  one." 
Art  can  have  no  higher  mission,  and  we 
have  reached  the  summit  of  religious 
painting  when,  through  the  simple  ex- 
pression of  common,  every-day  human 
emotion,  we  conceive  the  divine  essence, 
—  that  apotheosis  which  lifts  the  soul 
into  dumb  and  joyous  assent  with  all 
good  things. 


IV. 

CHRIST  AS  MARTYR 


"  That  Sacrifice  !     The  death  of  Him, 
The  High,  and  ever  Holy  One  ! " 

—  Whittier. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

CHRIST   AS  MARTYR. 

HE  first  representations  of  the 
Passion  of  our  Lord  date  from 
the  seventh  century,  and  were 
born  of  an  edict  of  the  Church.  The 
Council  of  Constantinople  which  sat  in 
692  decided,  after  due  deliberation,  that 
the  subject  should  be  treated  thereafter  as 
part  of  religious  art.  Heretofore,  only- 
mild  and  chiefly  symbolic  ideas  had  been 
chosen  in  the  delineation  of  the  divine 
narrative. 

Canon  Farrar '  devotes  a  whole  chapter 
to  the  consideration  of  this  early  re- 
serve in  painting  Christ,  and  in  a  shorter 

'  "  The  Life  of  Christ  in  Art." 
^2,7 


138  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

one  sums  up  the  reasons  therefore.  He 
remarks :  "  Since  Christians  saw  idols  on 
all  sides  of  them,  and  since  those  idols 
were  often  surrounded  with  seductiveness, 
and  sometimes  displayed  with  unblushing 
cynicism  the  fury  of  perverted  appetites, 
they  would  naturally  shrink  with  some- 
thing like  abhorrence  from  anything 
which  might  be  confused  with  a  material 
object  of  worship." 

The  early  sentiment  of  religious  art 
was  the  literal  injunction  of  the  Second 
Commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  have  no 
other  gods  before  Me  !  "  In  the  year  340, 
one  of  the  chief  bishops  of  the  Church 
commands :  "  Paint  not  Christ !  But  carry 
about  with  you  upon  your  soul  in  thought 
the  bodiless  Word." 

The  infinitely  wider  scope  which  this 
decree  of  the  Council  afforded  to  religious 
art  seems,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
license  which   followed,   to   have   been  a 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  1 39 

somewhat  unwise  divergence.  It  needed 
only  the  edict  of  the  Church  to  stir  to  its 
depths  the  semi-barbaric  imagination  of 
the  Dark  Ages  in  delineations  of  the 
awful  scenes  which  follow  our  Lord's 
entrance  upon  His  martyrdom.  And  from 
this  beginning  it  has  followed  ever  since 
that  more  attention  has  been  paid  to  the 
Crucifixion  and  attendant  scenes.  The 
early  masters,  Giotto  and  the  rest,  who 
devoted  years  to  a  whole  series,  made  the 
Crucifixion  the  crown  of  their  work. 
Other  series  were  devoted  exclusively  to 
the  subject.  A  considerable  part  of  the 
splendour  of  the  Church  of  St.  Mark  at 
Venice  is  derived  from  the  mosaics  of  the 
central  dome,  representing  this  sad  period. 
One  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  early 
religious  art  is  the  series  of  twenty-six 
frescoes  by  Duccio,  which  occupied  two 
years  of  the  painter's  life,  1308-10,  and 
adorn    the    cathedral    at    Sienna.      The 


140  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

great  easel  pictures  of  subjects  growing 
out  of  the  closing  days  of  the  life  of  our 
Lord  will  be  mentioned  in  their  order. 

The  entry  into  Jerusalem  marks  the 
beginning  of  the  Passion  Scenes  and  the 
commencement  of  the  last  week  of  the 
life  of  the  Christ  on  earth.  I  have  seen  a 
striking  picture  by  Alex  Bida  in  his  Bible 
series.  Riding  on  an  ass,  followed  by  the 
disciples,  and  preceded  by  men  and 
women  with  palms,  while  a  multitude 
lines  the  way  and  a  great  crowd,  in  the 
forefront  of  whom  appear  the  dignitaries 
of  the  city,  await  to  give  him  welcome, 
the  Saviour  approaches  the  towering  and 
splendid  gate  of  the  city.  The  scene  is 
full  of  the  life,  colour,  and  movement  of  a 
triumphal  event,  the  last  hour  of  triumph 
in  the  bitter  life  of  the  Christ ! 

In  early  art  this  scene  has  a  long  his- 
tory, traceable  on  the  sarcophagi,  in  the 
early  mosaics,  and  in  the  grand  series  of 


Fra  Angelico.  —  Entry  into  Jerusalem. 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  I43 

early  Italian  painters,  where  it  is  found 
again  and  again  repeated.  The  single  ex- 
ception to  its  general  use  in  the  churches, 
was  as  an  altar-piece. 

DUrer  has  a  fine  composition  in  his 
celebrated  Little  Passion  series,  so  called 
because  the  thirty-seven  sketches  compos- 
ing it  were  smaller  than  those  in  his  first 
series  of  the  Passion  completed  five  years 
earlier  (15 ii),  and  called  the  Greater  Pas- 
sion. This  genius  was  in  a  certain  sense 
the  Hogarth  of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  a 
more  than  even  Hogarthian  passion  for 
telling  the  truth  as  he  saw  it.  While  the 
purpose  and  the  power  of  his  religious 
pictures  can  never  be  mistaken,  he  was  yet 
curiously  fond  of  introducing  purely  co- 
temporary  details.  Even  in  so  serious  a 
subject  as  the  Flagellation,  for  instance, 
he  has  a  long-haired  poodle  shaved  after 
the  fashion  of  a  "  lion  "  in  the  foreground. 
An  urchin  with  a  mischievous  face  blows 


144  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

a  horn  contemptuously  at  the  suffering 
Saviour  from  one  corner. 

Despite  the  multiplicity  of  such  incon- 
gruities, the  value  of  Diirer's  work  will 
always  be  great  and  immediate ;  and  there 
is  certainly  no  painter  who  so  rivets  the 
imagination  by  the  curious  sense  the 
beholder  conceives  at  the  first  glance 
that  the  last  detail  of  the  scene  will  be 
found  on  the  canvas.  Diirer  leaves  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  the  imagination. 

As  a  representative  of  early  Middle  Age 
life  and  manners  in  the  Northland,  he  is 
of  considerably  more  value  even  than  as  a 
religious  painter.  The  very  soul  of  Ger- 
man Mediaevalism  indeed  exists  in  his 
pictures,  —  all  its  barbarity,  its  cruelty,  its 
grossness,  its  asceticism,  its  splendour. 
There  are  certain  details  of  Middle  Age 
costume,  of  custom,  which  live  nowhere 
except  in  the  vast  collection  of  his  works. 

All  of  the  modern  Bible  illustrators  — 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  1 45 

Overbeck,  Bida,  Dore,  Hofmann,  Tissot 
—  have  interesting  pictures  of  the  Entry 
into  Jerusalem.  Overbeck,  with  native 
realism,  introduces  prominently  among  the 
spectators  figures  of  himself  and  his  imme- 
diate relations.  Well  known  to  the  general 
masses  of  civilisation  is  Dore's  compara- 
tively recent  treatment  of  this  subject.  It 
is  full  of  the  exalted  spirit  of  the  scene, 
and  Dore  makes  much  of  the  figure  of  the 
Saviour  in  this  sense. 

Clirist  Weeping  over  Jerusalem,  which 
immediately  follows  the  Entry,  is  one  of 
Ary  Scheffer's  three  greatest  works,  the 
Temptation  and  the  Consolator  being  the 
others.  This  is  a  scene  calling  for  strong 
dramatic  imagination.  Distinctly  too 
fanciful  to  be  an  attractive  subject  to 
the  early  or  Renaissance  painters,  it  re- 
mained for  the  refined  genius  of  the 
nineteenth  century  to  introduce  it.  Ary 
Scheffer's   picture  is  the  first  important 


146  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

one.  Sir  Charles  Eastlake's  clarified 
spirit  has  given  us  a  beautiful  rendering, 
which  now  hangs  in  the  National  Gallery, 
London. 

The  three  years'  ministry  of  the  Saviour 
drew  to  a  close  with  these  last  days  in 
Jerusalem.  The  chief  sects  were  stirred 
up  against  Him,  and  as  He  went  about 
the  city  with  His  disciples  they  sought 
to  "  entangle  Him  in  His  talk,"  as  a  pre- 
lude to  lodging  a  serious  charge  against 
Him.  It  was  under  these  circumstances 
that  they  endeavoured  to  entrap  Him  into 
treason  by  asking  Him  about  the  tribute 
paid  to  Caesar. 

The  scene,  while  never  included  defi- 
nitely among  the  Passion  Series,  is,  nev- 
ertheless, a  general  subject  in  Art. 
Masaccio's  well-known  picture,  the  Trib- 
ute Money,  is  of  great  value  as  being  one 
of  the  very  first  examples  of  an  intelligent 
portrayal  of  human  character  in  a  sacred 


Titian.  —  Tribute  Money  (detail). 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 49 

scene.  As  rendered  by  Titian  (Dresden 
Gallery)  it  is  claimed  by  many  to  be  his 
masterpiece.  There  are  but  three  figures 
in  the  piece,  which  is  really  a  study  of 
the  Christ  at  a  supreme  moment  of  wis- 
dom and  power.  It  is  no  small  thing  to 
consider  this  picture  as  Titian's  greatest 
work,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  is  ad- 
judged by  a  certain  important  class  of 
critics  to  be  the  greatest  painter  who  ever 
lived. 

All  three  of  the  great  masters  of  North- 
ern Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century  painted 
the  Tribute  Money.  Van  Dyck's  picture, 
like  Titian's,  concentrates  on  the  two 
strongly  contrasting  figures,  the  patient, 
gentle,  powerful  Christ,  and  the  cunning 
Pharisee.  As  we,  who  read  the  scene  in 
the  Gospel  of  John  to-day,  might  naturally 
expect,  Rubens  and  Rembrandt  both  give 
it  a  more  ample  setting.  There  is  a  group 
of  spectators  who  are  properly  chagrined 


150  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

and  surprised  at  being  foiled  by  the  adroit 
answer  of  Jesus. 

These  were  perilous  times  indeed  for 
the  Son  of  Man,  and  the  last  few  days 
in  Jerusalem  are  aptly  summed  up  in 
Renan's  remark,'  "  Each  moment  at  this 
period  becomes  awful,  and  has  counted 
more  than  whole  centuries  in  the  history 
of  humanity."  The  history  of  Art  fully 
bears  out  this  pregnant  statement. 

No  scene  of  all  the  Saviour's  life  has  been 
painted  with  more  care  and  deeper  relig- 
ious feeling  than  The  Last  Supper. 
Here  again  a  very  imposing  array  of 
critics,  backed  by  a  vast  number  of  ob- 
servers for  fully  four  centuries,  arises  and 
proclaims  the  achievement  of  Da  Vinci  to 
be  the  masterpiece  of  all  time.  Unfortu- 
nately, time  has  outrun  the  verdict,  and  the 
wonderful  fresco  on  the  wall  of  the  Con- 
vent of  Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie,  Milan, 

» "  The  Life  of  Jesus." 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  I51 

is  sadly  decayed.  But  it  still  needs  no 
restoration  to  hint  at  its  profound  power 
and  purpose,  its  exalted  beauty,  and  di- 
vine feeling.  In  fact,  it  was,  as  originally 
painted,  so  great  a  picture  that  restoration 
is  in  the  highest  sense  hopeless,  although 
it  is  chiefly  familiar  to  moderns  through 
one  or  another  of  the  restored  copies. 

It  is  related  that  Da  Vinci  occupied 
nearly  a  year  at  this  work.  He  was  boarded 
and  lodged  at  the  expense  of  the  convent 
while  thus  engaged,  and  it  is  told  by 
Vasari  that  he  used  to  spend  hours  before 
it,  absorbed  in  profound  study.  Being 
finally  taken  to  task  by  the  prior  of  the 
convent  for  this  seeming  waste  of  time 
and  the  convent's  substance,  he  responded 
that  he  was  really  putting  in  his  chief 
strokes  while  he  appeared  to  sit  in  idle- 
ness. The  reply  was  so  apt  and  striking 
that  he  was  thereafter  left  to  himself. 

Leonardo  Da  Vinci  was  not  so  much  a 


152  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

great  painter  as  a  great  man.  His  aim 
in  life  seemed  to  be  to  perfect  himself  in 
every  possible  branch  of  knowledge.  His 
vast  and  cultured  intelligence  is  revealed 
in  the  head  of  Christ  in  The  Last  Supper, 
as  the  best  expression  of  his  own  remark- 
able genius  that  he  could  possibly  put 
upon  canvas.  The  general  arrangement 
of  the  whole  picture  has  always  been  held 
to  be  admirable.  It  was  considered  a 
masterpiece  of  conception  in  its  time,  and 
no  more  intellectual  rendering  of  the 
scene  has  been  given  us  since  it  was 
painted,  although  in  the  general  summary, 
we  have  to  consider  so  antipodal  a  com- 
position as  Von  Uhde's  well-known  piece, 
to  take  a  prominent  example  of  a  modern 
class. 

Beginning  with  the  sixth  century  mo- 
saics of  San  Apollinare  Nuovo,  at  Ra- 
venna, there  are  representations  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  down  to  yesterday.     The 


Raphael  (attributed).  —  Head  of  Christ. 
(From  The  Last  Supper.) 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 55 

great  art  series  of  the  early  and  pre- 
Renaissance  periods  included  it.  It  was 
a  favourite  theme  wherewith  to  adorn  the 
refectories  or  dining-rooms  of  the  con- 
vents and  priories.  Here  the  monks  who 
were  painters  wrought  with  ardour  on  so 
appropriate  a  scene.  The  deeper  relig- 
ious feeling  of  Central  and  Southern 
Italy  produced  more  examples  of  this 
class  than  the  North  can  show. 

The  basic  character  of  the  composition 
—  a  dozen  men  of  the  plainest  degree  gath- 
ered about  a  table  —  is  of  the  simplest. 
There  seems  to  have  been  no  distinct 
temptation  here  to  the  splendid  manner 
of  the  Venetian  school,  and  though  there 
are  fine  pictures  attributed  to  Tintoretto, 
all  are  a  distinct  degradation  of  the  scene, 
and  in  no  sense  noteworthy  among  his 
works.  Titian  and  Paolo  Veronese  are 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  Last 
Supper,  but  their  work  is  not  memorable. 


156  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

When  Holbein  lived  at  Basle,  in  his  early 
manhood,  he  painted  a  Last  Supper,  part 
of  which  is  missing.  The  picture  hangs 
in  the  Basle  Gallery.  DUrer  gives  us  the 
sturdy  German  type  for  his  disciples,  who 
seem  to  take  some  natural  interest  in  the 
eating  and  drinking.  And  that  is  also 
the  way  Lucas  Van  Leyden  painted  it. 
"  No  religion  without  an  honest  physical 
basis"  was  the  motto  of  the  early  German 
masters.  That  is  the  motive  of  Diirer, 
who  always  renders  the  extreme  of  expres- 
sion. Rembrandt  indeed  never  thought 
of  conveying  a  spiritual  idea,  until  after 
he  had  paid  strict  attention  to  the  physi- 
cal one.  It  is  an  honest  basis  for  Art, 
and  has  given  us  a  number  of  enduring 
examples,  among  them  Rembrandt's  own 
picture  of  the  Last  Supper. 

Da  Vinci's  treatment  has  been  the  key- 
note of  all  attempts  to  picture  the  Last 
Supper  since  the  finer  sense  of  the  later 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  1 57 

nineteenth  century,  with  the  Gallic  spirit 
in  the  lead,  has  generalised  the  soul  of  Art 
into  a  single  idea,  —  technique.  There  is 
no  surer  testimony  to  the  feeling  that 
Da  Vinci  was  indeed  a  soul  like  Shake- 
speare, "  Not  for  an  age,  but  for  all 
time." 

The  picture  of  Fritz  Von  Uhde,  a  liv- 
ing German  painter,  is  one  of  the  best 
known  among  modern  examples.  A 
recent  critic  has  remarked  with  fine 
insight  that  "  Von  Uhde's  simple  pathos 
revives  under  modern  forms  the  spirit  of 
Rembrandt."  Von  Gebhardt,  another  liv- 
ing German  artist,  has  also  contributed  an 
impressive  Last  Supper  to  the  modern 
realistic  treatment  of  the  subject. 

As  to  the  scene  which  is  a  part  of  the 
Supper,  the  Washing  of  the  Disciples' 
Feet,  as  epitomising  and  it  may  be  said 
apotheosising  our  Lord's  humility,  —  the 
keystone   of    the    Christian    creed,  —  we 


158  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

have  it  from  the  early  sarcophagi  down 
to  the  present  day.  The  roll-call  is  one 
of  important  names.  One  loves  to  linger 
on  them. 

All  the  fragrance  of  the  earliest,  the 
simplest,  undoubtedly  the  most  genuine, 
period  of  religious  art  clusters  around 
the  memory  of  Giotto,  of  Duccio,  of 
Ghiberti,  of  Fra  Angelico.  No  finer 
example  for  the  truly  religious  spirit  is 
offered  than  here.  Giotto  has  it  in  the 
series  to  which  he  devoted  his  best  years, 
—  the  Arena  Chapel  at  Padua.  It  is  in 
the  bright  chaplet  of  Duccio's  fame,  —  the 
immortal  Christ  series  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Sienna.  It  is  a  panel  of  the  marvellous 
gates  of  Ghiberti.  The  gentle  spirit  of 
Fra  Angelico  first  instituted  the  idea 
of  humility  in  the  disciples  in  the 
scene.  Peter  shrinks  away  with  a  de- 
precating gesture,  drawing  his  feet  under 
him.     There  is  a  spirit   of   reverence  in 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  1 59 

all  the  early  examples  which  it  is  good 
to  behold. 

A  picture  by  Morando,  in  the  Verona 
Gallery,  that  was  formerly  attributed  to 
his  master,  Moroni,  renders  the  scene 
best  of  all  the  earlier  pictures.  All 
mawkishness  in  the  idea  is  pretermitted 
utterly  in  this  portrayal,  the  sense  of 
which  is  the  true  key-note  of  the  theme, 
"  If  I  wash  thee  not,  thou  hast  no  part 
with  Me,"  —  at  once  utter  subjection  to, 
and  complete  triumph  over,  all  things 
earthly ! 

Tintoretto,  who  lived  a  long  life  of 
tremendous  energy  and  great  accom- 
plishment as  a  painter,  insomuch  that 
he  was  nicknamed  "The  Robust,"  and 
who  was  more  faithful  than  other  mas- 
ters of  the  Venetian  school  in  that  he 
rendered  nearly,  if  not  quite,  every 
scene  from  our  Lord's  life,  has  an 
example  which  is  preserved  in  the   Na- 


l6o  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

tional  Gallery  of  London.  Lucas  Cra- 
nach,  one  of  the  early  German  realists, 
and  a  most  precious  and  important 
painter,  has  a  good  picture  now  in  the 
Royal  Gallery  at  Berlin. 

Franz  Francken  IL,  the  most  conspicu- 
ous name  in  the  family  of  Fame  of  all  the 
Franckens,  which  included  no  less  than 
eleven  painters  and  engravers  of  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries,  has  a 
double  composition  in  the  Berlin  Gallery, 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  and  the  Washing  of 
Peter's  Feet,  the  latter  taking  place  in  the 
foreground.  This  is,  to  my  mind,  the 
most  exact  treatment  of  the  subject  if  the 
Scriptural  record  is  followed.  Ford  Madox 
Brown,  the  most  notable  modern  painter 
of  the  scene,  follows  this  general  idea, 
although  the  disciples,  most  of  whom  are 
behind  the  table,  are  so  far  in  the  back- 
ground that  they  seem  to  be  ridiculously 
subordinate  to  the  scene,  mere  shadowy 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  l6l 

figures  with  no  direct  meaning  or  expres- 
sion, while  the  attention  is  all  concentrated 
on  the  burly  yet  beautiful  figure  of  Peter 
and  the  seriously  impressive  Christ  in  the 
foreground.  The  original  was  bought 
by  some  admirer  of  the  pre-Raphaelite 
school  and  presented  to  the  National 
Gallery,  London,  in   1893. 

As  representing  the  Saviour's  Last 
Discourse  to  His  Disciples,  the  beau- 
tiful words  recorded  only  by  John,  we 
have  a  picture  by  Bonifazio  II.  that  can- 
not be  slighted  in  any  category  of  sacred 
art.  It  is  a  deeply  impressive  religious 
composition,  handled  in  an  alluring  and 
distinctive  manner.  In  the  face  of  the 
Christ  there  is  seen  an  expression  of 
divinity  that  is  finely  contrasted  with  the 
half-divinity  that  constant  intercourse 
with  Him  had  given  to  the  mien  of  His 
disciples.  Philip  is  entirely  earnest  in 
his   plea,   "  Lord,  show   us   the    Father,'* 


1 62  CHRIST    IN   ART. 

while  the  Christ  seems  utterly  divorced 
from  earthly  considerations  as  He  yet 
answers  in  propria  persona.  It  is  some- 
thing like  a  second  Transfiguration  that 
Bonifazio,  one  of  the  lesser  masters  of  the 
Venetian  school,  exhibits  to  the  careful 
student  in  this  picture.  The  work  hangs 
in  the  Venice  Academy. 

The  true  Agony,  to  the  general  reader, 
begins  with  the  night  in  Gethsemane. 
Here  Jesus  was  wont  to  repair  from 
Jerusalem  during  those  last  stormy  days 
for  an  evening  of  peace  and  quiet.  Every 
day  the  burden  of  life  grew  greater. 
Fresh  proofs  that  the  Pharisees  and  the 
Sadducees  only  sought  to  bring  Him 
under  the  dominion  of  the  stern  Roman 
government,  hourly  increased.  So  he  con- 
secrates a  night  in  lonely  Gethsemane  to 
a  special  prayer  for  help  and  deliverance. 

The  scene  necessarily  calls  for  imagina- 
tive treatment  of  the  finest  quality.     Ex- 


HoFMANN.  —  Christ  in  Gethsemane. 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  1 65 

amples,  indeed,  are  found  ranging  from 
the  Gospel  Book  of  Munich  (eleventh 
century)  down  to  the  latest  painters; 
but  there  are  few  pictures  of  this  par- 
ticular event  which  will  hold  the  modern 
sense,  except  the  modern  ones.  Hof- 
mann's,  the  lone  figure  of  the  Saviour 
kneeling  against  a  rock,  will  sufficiently 
satisfy  a  popular  ideal.  A  more  intense 
attitude  and  expression  is  that  rendered 
by  Liska,  the  picture  having  been  painted 
at  Rome  in  1880.  In  both  of  these,  as 
also  in  the  picture  by  Bruni  in  the  Her- 
mitage Gallery  in  St.  Petersburg,  the 
double  sense  of  present  agony  and  spirit- 
ual triumph  is  intimately  conveyed. 

The  scene  of  the  Betrayal  in  the 
Garden,  of  which  the  chief  motive  in 
artistic  representation  has  always  been 
the  Kiss  of  Judas,  is  found  even  in  the 
very  beginnings  of  Art  history.  It  occurs 
in    the    mosaics   of    San    Apollinare,   at 


1 66  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

Ravenna,  and  in  the  panels  of  the  early 
Cologne  school,  now  preserved  in  the 
Berlin  Gallery.  Giotto  and  Duccio,  of 
the  first  Italian  schools,  painted  it,  and 
Ghiberti  devotes  thereto  a  panel  of  his 
Bronze  Gates  of  the  Baptistery  at  Flor- 
ence. 

Giotto  (in  the  Arena  Chapel,  Padua) 
depicts  Judas  as  a  brutal  rascal,  in  whom 
crass  stupidity  is  more  evident  than  cun- 
ning or  even  hatred.  This  is  by  no 
means  the  modern  conception  of  the 
character,  although  the  picture  is  inter- 
esting. 

Duccio,  in  his  great  series  of  the  Opera 
del  Duomo,  in  Sienna,  with  a  more  en- 
lightened sense  gives  us  the  type  of  Judas 
that  the  popular  mind  has  usually  con- 
ceived,—  a  man  of  deep  craft  and  cun- 
ning, the  ideal  traitor. 

Fra  Angelico,  who  never  apparently 
allowed  the  thought  of  evil  to  enter  his 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  167 

soul,  —  you  will  search  in  vain  through 
his  works  for  a  single  inharmonious  note 
in  the  general  accord  of  goodness  in  the 
expressions  and  actions  of  his  person- 
ages,—  avoids  the  evident  difficulty  by 
presenting  a  rear  view  of  the  figure  of 
Judas.  This  is  also  the  attitude  in 
Ghiberti's  panel. 

Diirer  divided  the  subject  into  two 
scenes.  We  have  the  Kiss  of  Judas  in 
his  Little  Passion  series,  and  Christ 
Taken  Captive,  being  led  away  by  the 
soldiers,  in  the  Greater  Passion.  Lucas 
Van .  Leyden  presents  a  vigorous  scene 
in  his  realistic  manner,  which  shows  us 
the  Capture  and  the  Kiss  as  taking  place 
simultaneously. 

Schongauer,  who  was  half  a  century 
before  Diirer,  and  painted  and  engraved 
with  even  more  painful  realism,  makes  an 
important  contribution  in  his  characteristic 
manner    to   the   series.     Van    Dyck   was 


1 68  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

attracted  to  the  subject,  as  indeed  he  was, 
generally  speaking,  to  the  closing  scenes 
rather  than  the  earlier  ones  in  the  life  of 
our  Lord,  and  his  picture  hangs  to-day  in 
the  Gallery  of  the  Prado,  at  Madrid.  He 
has  idealised  the  Saviour  utterly  in  this 
work,  representing  Him  with  radiant  face, 
an  apotheosis  of  divine  triumph  at  the 
very  close  turning-point  of  His  earthly 
career. 

Hofmann,  of  recent  masters,  has  a  paint- 
ing outside  of  his  Bible  series  which 
hangs  in  the  Darmstadt  Museum.  Ary 
Scheffer,  after  the  manner  of  his  Christ 
and  the  Devil,  in  his  great  picture  of  the 
Temptation,  painted  a  picture,  showing 
only  Christ  and  Judas,  that  is  a  proper 
concession  to  the  modern  spirit  of  subjec- 
tivity. It  is  a  study  of  the  characters  of 
the  two  men,  and  a  successful  rendition, 
like  his  Temptation,  of  the  meaning  of 
the  supreme  moment. 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 69 

A  rather  fine  picture  of  the  .  Kiss  of 
Judas  in  the  same  general  style  has  been 
exhibited  only  recently  by  C.  Aug.  Guger, 
a  German  artist. 

Owing  to  the  conditions  of  Roman  rule 
at  Jerusalem,  the  circumstance  that  the 
ruling  race  had  very  little  in  common 
with  the  Jews,  either  in  religion  or  morals, 
there  was  some  difficulty  in  securing  the 
conviction  of  Jesus.  Five  times  was  He 
held  for  examination,  once  before  Annas 
and  Caiaphas,  once  before  Herod,  and 
twice  before  the  direct  representative  of 
Caesar,  Pontius  Pilate.  These  are  impor- 
tant scenes  to  the  painter,  the  great  figure 
of  the  chief  actor,  of  the  ruler,  and  the 
accessories  of  spectators  in  varied  groups 
and  costumings,  affording  excellent  picto- 
rial opportunity. 

Of  the  first  hearing  before  Annas, 
recorded  by  John,  Diirer  has  a  picture  in 
his  Little  Passion  series.     As  was  often 


I/O  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

the  case  with  this  very  earnest  man,  in 
order  to  be  wholly  impressive,  he  here 
finds  it  necessary  to  degenerate  into  posi- 
tive brutality.  Annas  is  represented  as 
seated  on  a  canopied  throne  in  the  back- 
ground, while  the  accused  is  dragged  up 
a  stairway  in  the  foreground  by  two 
ferocious  soldiers  in  mediaevial  costume. 

That  there  may  be  no  doubt  which  of 
the  hearings  is  represented,  Lucas  Van 
Leyden  in  his  picture  engraves  the  name 
of  Annas  on  his  throne,  in  the  same 
manner  that  the  newspaper  cartoonist  of 
to-day  labels  his  characters. 

The  chief  value  of  these  early  Northern 
masters  as  a  help  to  religious  inspiration 
is  the  deep  sincerity  —  sometimes  we  can 
almost  imagine  it  to  be  prayerful  —  with 
which  they  worked  out  their  strange 
scenes.  Canon  Farrar  observes,  in  this 
connection,  with  wise  insight,'  "  In  Art, 

»  «  The  Life  of  Christ  in  Art." 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  171 

insincerity  and  unreality  become  certain 
of  detection  when  they  try  to  pass  them- 
selves off  as  religion." 

The  first  really  important  hearing,  see- 
ing that  Annas  was  a  man  of  influence 
and  not  of  authority,  was  that  before 
Caiaphas,  his  son-in-law,  and  the  high 
priest  of  the  Jews.  St.  Matthew  gives 
the  scene  in  fullest  detail,  and  it  is 
of  most  importance  in  religious  paint- 
ing, next  to  the  hearing  before  Pilate, 
which  has  been  rendered  oftenest  of 
all. 

The  tribunal  of  Caiaphas  is  found  even 
on  the  remains  of  early  Christian  sar- 
cophagi away  back  in  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries.  Giotto  and  all  the  early  Italian 
and  Northern  masters  have  examples. 
Holbein,  to  mention  an  infrequent  painter 
of  sacred  subjects,  produced  a  drawing 
during  his  earlier  years  at  Basle,  and  it 
is  preserved  in  the  museum  there  to-day, 


172  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

where  are   hung   the   most  important  of 
his  few  religious  works. 

The  Mocking  of  Christ,  immediately 
following  the  Examination  before  Cai- 
aphas,  also  affords  ready  opportunity  to 
all  the  early  religious  painters.  Domenico 
Morelli,  a  very  talented  contemporary 
artist,  is  one  of  the  few  moderns  who  has 
been  attracted  by  the  spirit  of  the  scene. 

Only  the  short  roll  of  painters  who,  with 
fervent  zeal,  depicted  about  everything 
that  could  be  presented  in  the  life  of 
Christ,  give  the  scene  of  the  first  appear- 
ance before  Pilate,  and  the  same  may  be 
remarked  of  the  hearing  before  Herod. 
Albert  Durer's  is,  perhaps,  the  best  known 
and  the  most  valuable  representation  of 
the  latter.  This  is  a  part  of  the  Little 
Passion  series. 

The  last  appearance  before  Pilate,  the 
culmination  of  the  Trial  scenes,  the  hour 
of   final  judgment,  has,   as   stated,   been 


MuNKACSY.  —  Christ  before  Pilate  (detail). 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 75 

painted  oftenest  of  all.  It  has  been 
popular  from  the  earliest  times,  while  the 
latest  contribution  to  the  subject,  the 
masterly  rendering  of  Munkacsy,  is  a  work 
of  only  yesterday.  This  picture,  which 
was  publicly  exhibited  first  in  Europe  and 
then  in  this  country  only  a  few  years  ago, 
was  finally  added  to  the  treasures  of 
American  art  through  the  liberality  of 
Mr.  John  Wanamaker,  of  Philadelphia. 

The  Venetian  school  here  comes  into 
notice  through  the  important  picture  of 
Tintoretto,  which  is  a  part  of  his  series 
of  frescoes  in  the  Church  of  San  Rocco, 
at  Venice.  Pilate,  a  venerable  man  with 
a  long  beard,  undoubtedly  a  portrait  of 
some  Venetian  noble,  is  seated  in  state 
amid  a  scene  of  architectural  grandeur. 
Before  him,  having  just  ascended  a  flight 
of  steps  leading  to  the  throne  of  the  ruler, 
appears  the  Christ,  clad  in  a  long  white 
robe,  which,  with  the  glowing  halo  encir- 


176  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

cling  His  head,  throws  a  striking  contrast 
upon  the  scene.  The  background  is 
crowded  with  an  assemblage  of  handsome, 
dignified,  and  yet  sufficiently  interested 
men  and  women.  Pilate  laves  his  hands 
rather  ostentatiously  from  a  splendid  ser- 
vice of  plate,  as  he  turns  his  head  with  a 
bland  aspect  toward  the  humbled  Saviour. 
The  moment  chosen  is  the  final  expression 
of  his  good-will  to  the  Christ,  as  recorded 
by  Matthew :  "  He  took  water  and  washed 
his  hands  before  the  multitude,  saying,  '  I 
am  innocent  of  the  blood  of  this  just  per- 
son.    See  ye  to  it'  " 

The  Flagellation  of  Christ,  which  imme- 
diately followed,  is  regarded  by  Renan' 
as  a  mere  excuse  on  the  part  of  Pilate, 
with  the  hope  of  satisfying  the  mob.  At 
the  same  time  he  remarks  that  this  punish- 
ment usually  preceded  a  crucifixion.  The 
scene  was  seized  on  by  the  early  religious 

» "  The  life  of  Jesus." 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  I  77 

painters,  and,  especially  by  the  Northern 
masters,  is  rendered  with  something  more 
than  necessary  fidelity.  The  Italian  paint- 
ers likewise  often  take  pains  to  suggest 
extreme  cruelty.  Pilate  is  usually  a  part 
of  the  picture,  seated  in  appropriate  state, 
and  thus  a  strong  point  of  contrast  is 
effected.  The  opportunity  to  present  the 
rabid  fever  of  the  spirit  that  hurried  the 
Saviour  to  his  doom  was  plainly  seen  by 
all  early  painters,  and  so  fully  taken  ad- 
vantage of  that  pictures  of  the  Flagella- 
tion, down  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  are  nowise  pleasant  to  look 
upon. 

Immediately  following  this  period  there 
is  at  least  one  great  portrayal  of  the  theme 
by  Velasquez,  but  it  is  great  only  as  a 
work  of  art,  and  so  entirely  admirable  in 
this  sense  that  it  quite  banishes  religious 
feeling.  This  important  example  of  Spain's 
greatest   painter   is   called   Christ  at  the 


lyS  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

Column,  and  is  now  in  the  National 
Gallery,  London. 

The  Crowning  with  Thorns  is  the  sub- 
ject of  two  great  conceptions  by  Titian 
done  in  a  somewhat  cruel  spirit  but 
nevertheless  grand  works  as  to  general 
treatment.  One  of  these  hangs  in  the 
Louvre,  Paris,  and  the  other  is  in  the 
Munich  Gallery.  Of  the  former,  the  tra- 
dition runs  that  it  was  painted  at  the  age 
of  ninety. 

Having  scourged  Jesus,  Pilate  brought 
Him  forth  to  the  people  maimed  and 
bleeding,  in  the  hope,  as  seems  plausible 
enough  from  his  whole  attitude  through- 
out the  trial,  that  the  mob  might  call 
for  a  suspension  of  final  judgment.  It 
is  a  great  moment  for  the  painter.  But 
only  in  modern  art  do  we  find  representa- 
tions of  the  Ecce  Homo  that  at  all 
satisfy  the  modern  sense  of  the  scene.  So 
great  a  master  as  Titian  painted  Christ 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  I  79 

lying  on  the  ground,  exhausted  with 
suffering,  with  Pilate  standing  over  Him 
as  he  pronounces  the  words  of  extenua- 
tion. The  picture  is  in  the  Prado  Gallery, 
Madrid. 

All  the  early  painters  accentuated  this 
idea  of  physical  suffering  in  the  chief 
figure,  at  the  expense  of  the  greater  motive 
which  modern  artists  have  conceived  for 
the  scene.  That  of  Ciseri,  for  instance, 
an  Italian  of  our  own  day,  who  has  painted 
religious  themes  with  considerable  power, 
represents  the  Christ  as  looking  down 
upon  the  mob,  subdued  by  suffering,  but 
calm  in  the  strength  of  spiritual  triumph. 

To  return  to  earlier  times,  Rembrandt, 
who  has  engraved  some  religious  subjects 
with  unforgetable  power,  has  an  etching 
of  this  one  made  in  1636.  The  leading 
motif  in  this  work  is  also  the  spiritual 
victory  of  Christ  at  the  moment  of  His 
degradation. 


l8o  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

Benjamin  West,  who  gave  to  his  de- 
lineation of  the  scene  the  title  Christ 
Rejected,  is  conceded  to  have  produced 
his  best  picture  in  the  effort.  The 
painting  is  in  our  own  country,  at  the 
Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  Philadelphia. 
Munkacsy,  whose  Christ  before  Pilate  is 
so  well  known  among  us,  pays  particular 
attention  to  the  excited  populace  in  his 
picture. 

Correggio's  Ecce  Homo  hangs  in  the 
National  Gallery,  London.  The  easel 
picture  of  Guido  Reni,  representing  the 
despairing  head  of  the  Saviour  crowned 
with  thorns  is  one  of  the  best  known 
and  most  popular  of  all  religious  works 
of  art.  The  knowledge  that  he  is  said 
to  have  painted  a  large  number  of  dupli- 
cates will  perhaps  detract  somewhat  from 
this  general  estimate.  Murillo  also  ren- 
dered the  subject  in  much  the  same 
style. 


GuiDO  Reni.  —  EccE  Homo. 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 83 

The  journey  to  Calvary  is  known  in 
the  history  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
which  is  largely  the  history  of  sacred  art, 
as  the  Stations  of  the  Cross.  The  idea 
originated  in  the  mind  of  a  wealthy 
burgher  of  Nuremberg,  one  Martin  Kotzel, 
who  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land 
in  1477.  Tradition  had  long  preserved  a 
certain  path  over  the  hills  as  the  Via 
Dolorosa,  —  the  road  which  Jesus  took  on 
His  way  to  crucifixion.  Piecing  the  nar- 
ratives together  for  his  purpose,  on  his 
return  home  Kotzel  employed  Adam 
Kraft,  a  friend  of  DUrer,  to  paint  seven 
scenes,  culminating  in  a  Crucifixion,  at 
regular  stations  on  the  way  between  his 
own  house  and  the  Church  of  St.  John, 
where  he  was  a  regular  worshipper.  The 
scenes  in  order  were:  i.  Christ  Bearing 
the  Cross.  2.  He  Falls.  3.  He  meets 
the  Virgin.  4.  He  Falls  Again.  5.  St. 
Veronica  Lends  Him  Her  Handkerchief. 


184  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

6.    He    Falls    a    Third    Time.     7.   The 
Entombment. 

The  subject  in  a  general  sense  is  a 
repulsive  one  and  has  been  employed 
wholly  as  a  religious  emblem.  There  is 
scarcely  a  Catholic  church  of  any  pre- 
tensions that  has  not  its  series.  The 
tradition  of  St.  Veronica's  napkin  was 
indeed  painted  earlier  than  the  above 
mentioned  series,  and  there  is  an  example 
recorded  as  the  work  of  Meister  Wilhelm 
of  Cologne,  about  the  year  1380.  Of  this 
napkin  of  St.  Veronica,  who,  according  to 
the  legend,  offered  her  handkerchief  to 
the  Saviour  to  wipe  His  brow  as  He  toiled 
up  the  Mount  of  Calvary,  under  the  bur- 
den of  the  cross,  and  who,  on  receiving 
it  again,  found  the  divine  countenance 
stamped  thereon,  there  have  been  many 
paintings.  The  original  napkin,  or  what 
remains  of  it,  is  treasured  in  St.  Peter's, 
Rome,   an    unapproachable    relic.      This 


Gabriel  Max.  —  Napkin  of  St.  Veronica. 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 87 

was  long  claimed  as  the  earliest  and  only 
authentic  portrait  of  the  Christ,  but  must 
be  regarded  as  wholly  legendary.  Cor- 
reggio  has  a  striking  attempt  to  portray 
the  idea,  a  shadowy  face  of  the  Saviour 
crowned  with  thorns  on  a  painted  napkin. 
There  is  a  strong  touch  of  very  early 
German  realism  in  Ittenbach's  reproduc- 
tion of  the  Veronica  napkin,  although  the 
canvas  bears  the  date  1876  in  one  corner. 
The  picture  is  in  Berlin. 

There  is  a  strength  of  suffering  in  the 
theme  of  the  Cross-bearing  that  has  been 
the  key-note  of  all  representations  of  it, 
and  they  are  many  and  important.  This 
was  carried  by  the  earlier  masters  in  some 
instances  to  the  pitch  of  revolting  cruelty. 

A  resurrection  of  this  early  manner, 
and  a  most  startling  bit  of  realism,  about 
which  nine  persons  out  of  ten  will  fall 
into  cavil  at  once,  is  Jean  Beraud's  Le 
Chemin  de  la  Croix,  which  was  painted 


1 88  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

in  Paris  in  1894.  When  exhibited,  the 
picture  provoked  a  tumult  of  comment  as 
somewhat  in  advance  even  of  the  realism 
which  had  marked  such  a  considerable 
innovation  in  religious  painting  for  a  gen- 
eration. The  figure  of  the  Saviour  bend- 
ing to  the  point  of  prostration  beneath 
the  weight  of  the  cross  was  deemed 
pathetic  and  proper  from  a  conventional 
standpoint,  but  the  Parisian  mob  in  nine- 
teenth century  clothes  that  followed  him 
was  regarded  as  somewhat  unholy. 

There  is  in  this  group  almost  every  type 
of  modern  Parisians,  who,  as  the  faces 
keenly  indicate,  belong  to  the  skeptical 
persuasions.  There  is  the  philosopher, 
the  mystic,  the  anarch,  the  Jew,  and  the 
freethinker.  In  the  rear  are  seen  a  lady 
and  gentleman  in  full  evening  dress,  un- 
doubtedly representing  the  mere  votaries 
of  pleasure,  who  apparently  are  just 
returning    from    an    entertainment,    and 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 89 

have  stopped  to  jeer  with  the  mob.  Great 
stones  are  flung,  and  those  immediately 
behind  press  the  burden  down  upon  the 
Christ's  back.  The  sense  of  brutal  per- 
secution of  the  central  figure  is  almost 
intolerable. 

As  a  contrast  to  this  scene,  however, 
the  painter  has  introduced  a  group  of  a 
very  different  character,  who  await  the 
Cross-bearer  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
road.  It  is  a  crowd  quite  as  motley 
in  composition,  but  also  of  the  one  gen- 
eral character.  In  the  immediate  fore- 
ground an  aged  man  in  the  throes  of 
death  is  supported  by  a  young  priest  who 
calls  upon  him  to  rally  for  a  last  look 
upon  the  suffering  Saviour,  —  an  ideal 
death  indeed  I  A  young  bride  in  her  veil 
and  flowers  kneels  beside  her  husband 
and  invokes  the  benediction.  A  wounded 
soldier  just  behind  the  pair  stretches  forth 
imploring  hands.     Beside  him,  a  criminal 


igO  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

with  chains  dangling  from  his  arms  has 
the  same  gesture.  A  widow,  full-suited 
in  weeds,  bends  humbly  in  the  throng. 
Two  little  boys  supported  by  a  nun  are 
being  taught  to  pray  as  the  Saviour 
passes  by.  Artisans  and  menials  are 
seen  in  the  background  in  attitudes  of 
reverence. 

Whatever  may  be  denied  to  this  re- 
markable work  as  religious  art,  it  cannot 
be  studied  long  without  calling  forth 
all  the  meaning  of  the  theme.  It  is  up 
to  the  present  moment  the  most  strik- 
ing adventure  in  realism  the  nineteenth 
century  has  known,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive  while  in  its  presence  how  the 
genre  can  be  extended  very  much  farther. 

The  earliest  painters  of  the  procession 
to  Calvary  usually  took  their  choice  be- 
tween Jesus  and  Simon  as  the  bearer  of 
the  cross.  If  it  was  desired  to  impress 
the  beholder  with  the  dignity  of  Christ's 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  I9I 

presence  in  this  one  of  His  very  darkest 
hours,  Simon  was  introduced.  If  the  idea 
of  supreme  suffering  was  sought  to  be 
made  prominent,  our  Lord  was  seen  toil- 
ing beneath  the  burden.  The  latter  has 
been  the  choice  of  most  painters.  Some- 
times, however,  as  in  the  early  examples 
of  Giotto  in  the  Arena  Chapel  frescoes 
at  Padua,  of  Ghiberti  in  his  bronze  gates, 
and  of  Fra  Angelico  in  the  Florence 
Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  He  is  represented 
as  serene  and  calm  under  the  weight  of 
the  tree,  and  even  as  comforting  the  Vir- 
gin, the  Magdalen,  and  the  other  weeping 
women  who  walk  beside  Him,  overcome 
with  sorrow. 

The  serenity  of  the  first  great  painters 
in  the  handling  of  this  scene  was  almost 
rudely  disturbed  very  shortly  after  the 
true  Renaissance  began.  An  entirely  new 
type  of  picture  that  specially  accentuated 
the  note  of  mental  and  physical  suffering 


192  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

in  the  principal  actor  was  now  developed. 
The  Italian  painters,  and  those  of  the 
Northern  schools  who  usually  followed 
the  lead  of  the  Southern  masters  in  the 
general  motif,  seemed  almost  to  vie  with 
one  another  in  representing  the  extreme 
degradation  of  the  Saviour  on  His  way  to 
crucifixion.  There  is  a  typical  example  of 
this  manner  of  treatment  in  the  Verona 
Gallery,  by  Morando.  Lucas  Van  Leyden 
goes  the  length  of  realism  in  depicting 
one  of  the  soldiers  striking  the  Saviour, 
who  has  fallen  prone  upon  the  ground, 
while  another  one  is  handling  Him 
roughly. 

To  illustrate  to  what  remarkable  ex- 
tremes religious  art  is  sometimes  carried, 
—  albeit  in  a  somewhat  opposite  direction 
to  the  one  just  recorded,  —  I  would  call 
attention  to  at  remarkable  piece,  entitled 
Calvary,  by  Aertszen,  in  the  Gallery  at 
Berlin,  which  many  of  my  readers  may 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 93 

have  had  the  good  fortune  to  see.  The 
landscape  is  a  beautiful  German  country, 
winding  slowly  up  to  an  eminence  on 
which  the  cross  is  planted.  In  the  right 
foreground  is  a  group  of  country  people 
in  and  about  a  wain  loaded  with  good 
things,  who  have  come  out  as  if  to  a 
spectacle  or  merrymaking.  The  horses 
have  been  taken  out  and  are  tethered,  and 
the  company  are  settling  themselves  as 
for  a  day's  outing.  In  the  left  foreground, 
one  of  the  thieves  is  seen  approaching, 
with  bowed  head,  on  a  very  stupid  and 
unwilling  ass,  which  is  being  forced  along 
by  a  stout  centurion,  whose  Roman  cos- 
tume strikes  a  very  incongruous  note  as 
the  only  one  of  the  period  in  the  whole 
foreground  of  the  composition.  Near  the 
centre  of  the  picture,  another  thief,  nearly 
naked,  reclines  in  a  cart  driven  by  a  man 
in  a  Middle  Age  costume.  Higher  up, 
the  Christ  has  just  fallen  under  the  weight 


194  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

of  the  cross,  and  is  being  beaten  by  two 
lusty  centurions  with  enormous  staves. 
The  rest  of  the  way  to  the  summit  is 
strewn  with  monks,  sightseers,  and  ped- 
dlers of  eatables  and  drinkables.  It  is  a 
crowded  and  vivid  composition,  doubtless 
all  human  enough  and  all  true  enough  in 
a  sense,  but  as  far  from  suggesting  con- 
ventional religious  sentiment  as  any  of 
the  pictures  painted  by  a  certain  class 
of  Venetian  masters  to  please  the  vanity 
and  satisfy  the  taste  of  the  nobles. 

There  are  pictures  of  the  Ascent  to  Cal- 
vary by  several  of  the  great  masters.  One 
that  is  notable  by  Tintoretto  is  in  the 
series  of  frescoes  in  the  Cathedral  of  San 
Rocco,  Venice ;  one,  attributed  to  Ra- 
phael, a  somewhat  formal  composition  for 
that  great  master,  whose  location  I  am 
unable  to  give ;  and  one  in  the  Brussels 
Museum,  by  Rubens. 

Of  easel  pictures  after  the  type  of  the 


PiOMBO.  —  Christ  Bearing  the  Cross. 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  1 97 

Ecce  Homo,  a  large  number  were  made 
during  the  Renaissance.  These  present 
usually  the  solitary  figure  of  the  Saviour, 
crowned  with  thorns,  and  grasping  the 
cross  on  His  shoulder. 

The  very  first  representation  of  the 
crucifixion  itself,  of  which  undoubtedly 
more  pictures  have  been  painted  than  of 
any  other  single  subject  in  Art,  is  in 
ivory,  a  carving  on  a  small  tablet  that 
is  preserved  as  a  priceless  relic  in  the 
British  Museum.  This  is  attributed  to 
about  the  fifth  century.  One  of  the  il- 
luminated manuscripts  of  the  Dark  Ages, 
the  Syriac  Gospel,  contains  a  well  worked 
out  scene  for  so  early  a  period.  The 
book  is  in  the  Laurentian  Library,  Flor- 
ence. 

It  will  not  do  to  pass  by  in  this  connec- 
tion the  picture  known  to  the  masses  of 
civilisation  as  the  Elevation  of  the  Cross, 
which,  in  its  permanent  place  in  the  Ant- 


198  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

werp  Cathedral,  has  been  for  three  cen- 
turies one  of  the  chief  glories  of  the 
Flemish  people,  as  it  is  also  conceded  to 
be  one  of  the  greatest  works  of  Rubens. 

Crucifixion  was  the  general  punish- 
ment among  the  Romans  for  slaves  who 
committed  theft,  and  was  always  con- 
ducted by  a  detail  of  the  soldiery.  The 
hands  and  feet  of  the  victim  were  nailed 
to  the  cross,  with  a  supporting  bar  be- 
tween the  legs  at  the  middle  of  the  body. 
Death  was  supposed  to  come  in  about 
three  days  from  lesions  brought  about 
by  the  horribly  unnatural  position  of  the 
body.  Renan,  in  his  "  Life  of  Jesus," 
however,  estimates  that  Christ,  who  was 
of  a  highly  sensitive  organisation,  and 
already  much  worn  by  the  Agony,  died 
at  the  end  of  three  hours  from  the  rupture 
of  a  blood-vessel. 

In  most  of  the  early  Crucifixions,  in- 
cluding a  large  number  of  the  finest  altar- 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  1 99 

pieces  painted  for  Italian  churches  of 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  espe- 
cially, the  scene  always  occupies  the  cen- 
tral place  of  honour,  and  is  surrounded 
frequently  with  a  detail  of  saints.  Angels 
are  always  introduced  as  poised  beneath 
the  arms  of  the  cross,  holding  in  out- 
stretched hands  a  cup  to  catch  the  blood 
from  the  nailed  hands  of  the  Saviour. 
Sometimes  four  angels  are  represented, 
each  holding  a  cup  to  one  of  the  wounds. 
Again  the  angel  at  the  left  arm  performs 
the  double  office  of  catching  the  blood 
both  from  the  hand  and  the  left  side. 

In  the  Gospel  Books,  in  the  mosaics, 
and  in  all  representations  up  to  the 
thirteenth  century,  the  figure  of  the 
Christ  on  the  cross  is  invariably  draped 
from  the  loins  downward. 

To  the  preachings  of  that  inspired 
monk  and  man  of  miracles,  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  is  attributed  a  special  develop- 


200  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

ment  of  interest  in  the  subject  as  an 
art  motive.  Very  soon  after  his  time  we 
begin  to  find  genuine  historical  represen- 
tations. All  the  figures  spoken  of  in  the 
Gospels  are  introduced,  much  promi- 
nence being  given  to  the  Virgin,  and  even 
the  soldiers  are  seen  in  the  foreground 
casting  lots  for  the  garments  of  the  Cru- 
cified One.  And  since  the  very  earliest 
examples  we  find  one  or  more  groups 
of  hovering  angels  also.  The  aspect  of 
the  Christ  in  each  and  all  of  the  first 
Crucifixions  painted  was  that  of  intense 
suffering.  No  note  of  the  final  triumph 
is  at  all  suggested.  The  Renaissance 
added  to  this  general  ideal  a  careful 
attention  to  anatomy  in  the  figure  of  the 
Saviour,  and  occasionally  a  more  en- 
lightened idea  in  His  expression,  sug- 
gesting sometimes  the  pathos  of  great 
resignation. 

The   picture   of   Bernardino    Luini,  at 


Perugino.  —  Crucifixion  (central  panel). 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  203 

Lugano,  is  one  of  the  first  examples 
that  satisfies  the  modern  sense  of  treat- 
ment. It  is  indeed  considered  one  of 
the  great  religious  paintings  of  all  time, 
and  has  for  several  generations  been  the 
object  of  special  pilgrimages  by  students 
of  religious  art. 

On  the  walls  of  the  great  churches  in 
Italy,  the  Crucifixion  was  frequently  rep- 
resented in  a  more  idealised  style,  the 
artist  choosing  such  single  figures  or 
groups  as  best  suited  his  particular  con- 
ception of  the  theme  for  adoration  by 
the  people.  The  Virgin,  the  Magdalen, 
and  one  or  more  saints  are  usually  seen 
in  such  representations.  A  valuable  ex- 
ample of  this  class  is  the  famous  fresco 
by  Perugino  in  the  Church  of  Santa 
Maria  Maddalena  dei  Pazzi,  in  Florence. 
This  consists  of  three  arched  panels,  the 
figure  of  the  Christ  stretched  upon  the 
cross  in  the  central  one,  at  the  right  the 


204  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

Virgin  and  St.  Bernard,  and  in  the  other 
space  St.  Benedict  and  St.  John,  and  will 
answer  the  general  description  of  a  large 
number  of  Crucifixions  thus  painted  in 
the  Italian  churches  at  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance. 

Fra  Angelico's  Crucifixion,  his  grand 
fresco  for  the  Sala  del  Capitolo,  now  pre- 
served in  the  Museum  of  San  Marco  at 
Florence,  is  calm,  gloomy,  yet  full  of 
sincere  pietistic  feeling.  The  thieves,  to 
point  the  contrast  with  the  central  figure, 
who  is  in  the  last  stages  of  emacia- 
tion, are  plump,  well-conditioned  fellows. 
There  is  no  attempt  at  a  dramatic  por- 
trayal of  the  scene.  It  is  a  severely  re- 
ligious piece,  containing,  besides  Mary 
and  the  Disciples  in  stereotyped  attitudes, 
a  number  of  the  martyrs  of  the  early 
Church.  This  is,  however,  like  any  of 
Fra  Angelico's  pieces,  a  work  that  will 
induce  a  markedly  devout  impression  in 


CHRIST   AS    MARTYR.  205 

every  observer  so  long  as  it  remains  de- 
cipherable, and  its  immediate  effect  when 
it  was  first  unveiled  must  have  been  very- 
powerful.  It  is  semi-circular  in  shape, 
and  was  probably  employed  as  a  lunette. 

Michael  Angelo  painted  a  Crucifixion 
after  the  manner  which  has  since  be- 
come so  stereotyped,  —  the  single  figure 
stretched  upon  the  cross.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  any  sense  unusual  in  the  work, 
either  in  conception  or  treatment,  except 
a  skull  reposing  between  two  thigh-bones 
at  the  foot  of  the  cross.  But  the  influ- 
ence that  this,  one  of  the  very  earliest 
of  the  single  figure  conceptions,  coming 
from  so  great  a  hand,  must  have  had  on 
future  painters,  was  doubtless  very  great. 
It  may  have  set  the  pattern,  for  nearly 
every  succeeding  master  has  at  least  one 
Crucifixion  in  this  style,  down  to  the 
seventeenth  century. 

Durer's  single  figure  of  the  Crucifixion 


206  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

is,  in  the  attitude,  and  especially  in  the 
carefully  studied  countenance  of  the 
Saviour,  one  of  the  very  best  render- 
ings of  the  whole  theme.  Canon  Farrar 
remarks,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
churchman,'  "  If  it  be  lawful  to  paint 
this  subject  at  all  it  could  hardly  be 
done  better  than  Diirer  has  done  it." 
This  artist  also  has  two  crowded  and 
unforgetable  scenes  representing  the  Cru- 
cifixion in  his  Greater  and  Lesser  Passion 
series. 

Tintoretto  found  in  the  scene  on  Cal- 
vary his  most  splendid  opportunity  as  a 
religious  painter.  No  less  than  three 
great  pictures  are  known  to  have  been 
painted  by  this  master,  all  of  which  are 
in  Venice.  He  regarded  the  theme  from 
the  standpoint  of  high  tragedy,  and  has 
given  us  stirring  and  awful  compositions. 
The  fresco  of  San  Rocco  seems  to  be  by 

»  "  The  Life  of  Christ  in  Art." 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  20/ 

general  consent  of  all  authorities  the  most 
important  one.  Ruskin  sums  up  his  de- 
scription by  saying,  "  I  must  leave  this 
picture  to  work  its  will  on  the  spectator, 
for  it  is  beyond  all  analysis  and  above  all 
praise."  Although  the  cross  bearing  the 
Saviour  is  alone  elevated,  and  the  sacrifice 
of  the  thieves  is  in  active  preparation, 
there  is  a  gloom  pervading  the  whole 
scene  that  suggests  the  "darkness  that 
fell"  only  after  the  crosses  had  been  for 
some  time  set  up.  It  is  this  special  feel- 
ing that  is  the  key-note  of  its  power,  which 
is  well  sustained  in  every  detail  as  the  eye 
wanders  from  group  to  group. 

It  is  a  crowded  and  various  composi- 
tion, the  supreme  note  of  which  is  the 
shadow  of  awful  tragedy.  Of  all  the  old 
masters,  Tintoretto  has  unquestionably 
best  succeeded  in  rendering  this  impor- 
tant, one  might  almost  say  final,  motive 
in  the  handling  of  one  of  the  crowning 


208  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

themes  of  religious  art.  There  is  little 
space  in  this  brief  summary  to  dilate  on 
great  pictures,  but  it  seems  to  me  one 
could  not  exhaust  in  a  whole  day  spent 
before  it  the  feeling  of  power  that  is 
conveyed  by  this  superb  work. 

The  Crucifixion  of  Rubens  (not  the 
single  figure  reproduced  here,  but  a 
composition  of  which  there  are  several 
replicas),  as  might  be  expected  of  this 
master  in  whom  the  sense  of  life  was 
like  the  ever-swollen  joyous  flood  of  a 
mighty  river,  is  first  of  all  a  robust  and 
splendid  figure  of  the  Christ  Himself. 
But  a  glance  at  the  countenance,  seri- 
ous in  the  depth  of  agony,  only  again 
sets  the  seal  on  the  genius  of  Rubens. 
The  muscular,  splendid  figure  is  not 
forgotten,  but  an  ineffable  sense  of  the 
supremest  possible  human  woe  is  also 
unforgetably  stamped  upon  the  beholder. 
Here  is  the  power  of  Rubens,  which  was 


Rubens.  —  Crucifixion. 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  211 

never  for  one  moment  of  a  distinctly 
religious  cast.  He  is  to  most  of  us  of 
the  earth,  earthy,  and  as  such  he  satis- 
fies. The  agony  of  the  thieves  is  well 
rendered.  The  Christ  is  dead,  with  the 
pathos  of  great  suffering  set  upon  His 
countenance.  But  the  thieves  live,  and 
each  is  writhing  in  dire  agony.  The 
contrasting  groups  below,  assembled  with 
a  masterly  sense  of  effect  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  attitude  and  line,  are  a  couple  of 
soldiers  on  horseback,  one  of  whom  lifts  a 
spear  to  pierce  the  side  of  the  lorn  Sa- 
viour; and  the  Virgin,  another  female 
figure,  and  John,  who  are  depicted  in 
beautifully  despairing  attitudes  of  grief. 
Mary  Magdalen,  —  the  ideal  figure, — 
with  long  showering  blonde  tresses,  is 
kneeling  at  the  bleeding  feet  of  the 
Saviour. 

The  pictures  of  Rubens  considered  as 
religious  art  belong  in  a  class  by  them- 


212  .      CHRIST    IN   ART. 

selves.  Concerning  the  great  —  for  till 
the  colours  fade  out  entirely  it  will  remain 
so  in  a  very  opulent  sense  —  Descent 
from  the  Cross,  in  the  Antwerp  Cathe- 
dral, there  has  always  been  much  debate, 
many  for  generations  past  even  going  so 
far  as  to  declare  that  it  has  no  fitting 
place  in  an  edifice  dedicated  to  religious 
worship.  But  the  work  of  Rubens  is  so 
remarkably  human  that  it  can  never  be 
lost  sight  of,  —  will  always  remain  a  glory 
of  Art,  —  and  certainly  it  cannot  by  even 
the  most  devout  dogmatist  be  honestly  set 
down  against  this  master  that  he  endeav- 
oured to  serve  religion.  In  his  own  par- 
ticular sphere  Rubens  has  conveyed  his 
own  important  message.  To  all  the 
world  with  a  trumpet  voice  he  has  pro- 
claimed the  splendour,  the  power,  of  the 
human  form,  and  the  sense  of  the  opu- 
lence of  life  lived  —  as  his  own  was  — 
from    beginning    to    end   on    the    grand 


GuiDO  Reni.  —  Crucifixion  (detail). 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  215 

plane.  It  is  a  sufficient  service,  and  his 
message  even  as  a  religious  painter  will 
undoubtedly  grow  in  power  and  impor- 
tance with  the  centuries. 

Van  Dyck,  his  greatest  pupil,  painted 
several  Crucifixions.  To  the  last  scenes 
in  the  life  of  Christ  he  seems  somehow 
to  have  been  inevitably  attracted.  His 
religious  subjects  do  not  sustain  his 
fame,  however.  But  of  interest  to  the 
visitor  is  at  least  one  important  example 
of  the  Crucifixion,  now  preserved  in  the 
Antwerp  Museum. 

The  Renaissance,  in  its  impassioned 
search  for  the  ideal,  early  fixed  on  the 
simple  figure  stretched  on  the  cross  as 
the  highest  form  of  representation.  So 
Guido  Reni  and  all  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury masters  following  the  time  painted 
it.  His  best  example  is  in  the  Church 
of  San  Lorenzo  in  Lucina,  Rome,  —  a 
grand  work. 


2l6  CHRIST   IN   ART. 

A  very  few  modern  masters  have  dared 
to  return  to  the  earliest  style  of  crowded 
composition.  Of  these  the  paintings  of 
Verestchagin  and  Munkacsy  most  readily 
occur.  The  rendering  of  the  latter  is, 
like  Tintoretto's,  a  scene  of  gloom.  The 
"  darkness  "  has  fallen ;  the  crowd  is  pre- 
paring to  leave ;  the  Son  of  Man  is 
slowly  dying  upon  the  tree ;  the  thieves 
are  beginning  to  feel  the  awful  physical 
pangs  of  the  torture.  The  chiefs  of 
the  sects  are  seen  retiring  in  the  fore- 
ground, discussing  the  event  with  solemn 
faces.  The  soldier  who  has  pierced  His 
side  holds  his  spear  at  rest,  gazing  with 
sad,  serious  face  upon  the  Saviour.  The 
group  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  are  in  an 
agony  of  still  suffering.  The  note  is 
quiet,  intense,  and  dramatic  in  the  ex- 
treme, but  more  than  all,  gloomy,  as 
was  the  essential  cast  of  mind  of  pos- 
sibly the  greatest  genius  in  modern  re- 


CHRIST    AS    MARTYR.  21 7 

ligious  painting,  —  now,  alas !  clouded 
for  ever. 

The  Crucifixion  of  A.  Morot,  a  French- 
man, painted  within  a  few  years,  is  a  most 
admirable  piece  of  execution.  The  figure 
is  tied,  not  nailed,  to  the  cross,  and  is 
evidently  copied  direct  from  the  living 
model. 

That  intense  spirit  of  realism  that  is 
one  of  the  basic  elements  of  American- 
ism has  carried  the  idea  of  the  single 
figure  crucifixion  so  far  in  our  own  coun- 
try that  at  least  two  notable  examples  of 
photography  direct  from  the  living  person 
are  known  to  connoisseurs.  These  have 
been  produced  within  the  past  five  years, 
and,  aided  by  the  recent  rapid  progress 
in  the  discovery  of  the  physical  laws  gov- 
erning photography,  which  have  indeed 
advanced  it  to  something  like  the  plane 
of  an  art,  they  possess  a  very  genuine 
value. 


2l8  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

Short  indeed  is  the  roll  of  American 
artists  who  have  attempted  the  great 
theme  of  the  Crucifixion.  The  painting 
of  that  name  by  Thomas  Eakins  will  be 
recalled  by  art  lovers  of  the  past  genera- 
tion. This  is  a  single  figure  piece  in  the 
Philadelphia  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  It 
is  a  bit  of  realism  in  flesh  painting  that 
stamps  itself  unforgetably  upon  the  be- 
holder. Equally  memorable  is  the  strong 
sentiment  conveyed  by  the  glaring  sun 
upon  the  lone  figure  set  in  a  waste  of 
sand.  This  is  a  powerful  work,  and  atones 
for  much  shortcoming  in  religious  art  in 
Artlerica. 


V. 

CHRIST  DEAD  AND  ARISEN 


"  'Tis  the  weakness  in  strength  that  I  cry  for  !  my 

flesh  that  I  seek. 
In  the  Godhead  !  I  seek  and  I  find  it !     Oh !  Saul 

it  shall  be, 
A  face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee  ;  A  man  like 

to  me, 
Thou  shalt  love,  and  be  loved  by  for  ever  ;  a  Hand 

like  this  hand, 
Shall  throw  open  the  gate  of  new  life  to  thee !  see 

the  Christ  stand ! " 

—  Browning. 


CHAPTER   V. 

CHRIST    DEAD   AND    ARISEN. 

I  HE  note  of  gloom,  the  still  note 
of  tragedy,  is  somehow  the  dom- 
inant one  in  nearly  all  the  pic- 
tures of  the  Entombment.  The  sufferings 
of  the  Saviour  are  ended.  The  simple 
and  beautiful  narrative  of  the  begging  of 
the  body  by  St.  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
comes  on  the  soul  like  a  restful  calm. 
"  It  is  finished "  was  the  last  cry  of  the 
Cross,  and  is  the  first  honest  note  of 
the  Pieta. 

But  this  does  not  seem  to  be  the 
dominant  idea  with  most  religious  paint- 
ers. The  Deposition  or  Descent  from 
the    Cross    was    the    scene    chosen    by 


222  CHRIST    IN   ART. 

many  of  the  earlier  artists.  Duccio,  in 
his  Passion  series  (Sienna  Cathedral),  to 
mention  a  very  important  first  master 
of  the  art  of  painting,  chose  this  part  of 
the  subject.  Daniele  Da  Volterra,  a 
pupil  of  Michael  Angelo,  and  who  is 
classed  among  the  Decadents  of  the  Re- 
naissance, made  his  masterpiece  of  a  De- 
scent from  the  Cross.  It  is  in  the  Church 
of  the  Trinita  de  Monti,  Rome.  Niccolo 
Pisano,  who,  to  go  back  in  the  record  of 
time  a  century  or  so,  revived  the  art  of 
sculpture,  had  a  beautiful  relief  of  the 
theme  in  a  church  at  Lucca. 

Fra  Angelico  chose  to  paint  the  De- 
scent from  the  Cross  rather  than  a 
gloomy  Entombment.  The  picture,  made 
in  1445  for  the  Church  of  Santa  Trinita 
in  Florence,  is  now  among  the  treasures 
of  the  Florence  Academy.  And  there  are 
Depositions  from  the  earliest  work  of  the 
monks  of  the  mediaeval  period  in  mosaic 


Rubens.  —  Descent  from  the  Cross. 


CHRIST    DEAD    AND    ARISEN.  2  25 

and  missal,  down  to  the  splendid  paint- 
ing of  Rubens,  the  companion  piece  to  his 
Elevation  of  the  Cross,  in  the  Antwerp 
Cathedral. 

Mantegna,  an  early  Renaissance  master, 
who  is  full  of  the  seriousness  that  is  at 
the  basis  of  true  religious  feeling,  en- 
graved the  Descent.  Rembrandt  lingered 
even  to  etch  it.  The  Dutch  master  also 
painted  it,  —  a  double  service  which  he 
rendered  to  many  of  the  sacred  subjects 
to  which  he  was  most  attracted, — and  the 
latter  picture  is  now  one  of  the  important 
works  in  the  Munich  Gallery. 

Fra  Filippo  Lippi  and  Perugino  collabo- 
rated on  a  work  which,  under  this  title, 
hangs  in  the  Royal  Gallery  of  Florence. 
It  is  full  of  a  curious  grotesquerie  in  the 
disposition  and  attitudes  of  the  figures, 
but  painted  with  much  feeling  and  sin- 
cerity. The  characteristic  spiritual  qual- 
ity of  Perugino's  style  is  manifest  here, 


226  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

combined  with  Fra  Lippi's  intensity  of 
feeling  for  the  human  quality.  But  there 
is  no  solidity  to  the  picture  as  a  whole. 
It  is  painted,  even  as  to  the  countenances, 
with  a  confused  sense  of  power,  and  the 
sense  of  activity  in  the  participants,  which 
is  almost  painful,  destroys  the  true  rela- 
tive meaning  of  the  scene. 

Many  of  these  old  masters  are  of  value 
largely  in  the  historical  sense,  as  contrib- 
utors to  the  record  of  the  progress  of  Art. 
Their  works  are  the  treasured  possessions 
of  the  galleries  of  Europe,  on  account  of 
the  high  general  value  to  civilisation 
of  the  art  of  painting.  And  yet,  most  of 
them,  despite  the  most  glaring  faults  as 
measured  by  the  canons  of  technique 
to-day,  possess  a  still  higher  value  than 
this.  They  are  the  record  of  the  state 
of  spiritual  feeling  and  thought  of  the  day 
when  they  were  made.  The  exact  status 
of  current  religious  feeling  can  be  traced 


o 

w 

o 
o 

H 
< 

pq 
<! 


CHRIST   DEAD   AND    ARISEN.  229 

in  the  canvasses  of  the  masters  far  easier 
by  those  who  know  how  to  read  it  than 
in  any  other  way.  These  painters  were 
in  an  important  sense  the  soul  of  their 
time.  Their  greatest  mission  is  as  relig- 
ious historians ;  but  they  render  also 
contemporary  manners,  costume,  charac- 
ter, so  that  there  is  not  one  of  the  most 
archaic  and  seemingly  grotesque  of  the 
older  works  but  has  a  religious,  a  his- 
torical, and  a  moral  significance.  This 
is  the  essence  of  the  value  of  painting, — 
it  gives  us  exactly,  like  poetry,  in  a  simple 
form  the  souls  of  not  one  man,  but  of  many. 
It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  the 
whole  of  the  civilisation  of  his  time  is  in 
the  complete  works  of  every  important 
master. 

Fra  Bartolommeo's  Deposition,  in  the 
Pitti  Gallery,  is,  despite  the  sorrowful 
character  of  the  subject,  a  painting  of 
the    rarest    attractiveness    to    all     lovers 


230  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

of  the  beautiful.  The  sense  of  the  scene 
is  perfectly  realised.  The  attitudes  and 
expressions  of  the  figures  (there  are  only 
four)  are  absolutely  ideal,  full  of  deep  yet 
chastened  grief,  while  the  whole  composi- 
tion shows  the  hand  of  a  master  of  style 
in  painting.  Not  so  tragically  mournful 
as  many  of  the  other  Entombments,  the 
painting  is  full  of  the  charm  of  Italian  art 
in  its  best  period. 

One  of  the  great  names  in  Northern 
art  that  the  Flemings  of  to-day  hold  in 
particular  estimation  is  that  of  Quentin 
Matsys,  who  began  his  life  as  a  black- 
smith, and  whose  picture  of  the  Deposi- 
tion, now  hanging  in  the  Antwerp  Gallery, 
is  held  to  be  his  chief  work. 

Of  the  Pieta,  which  is  the  general  term 
for  all  pictures  of  the  Dead  Christ  and 
His  Mother,  there  is  an  enormous  number 
and  infinite  variety  of  scenes,  ranging  over 
five  centuries.     Giotto,  in  the  immortal  (if 


CHRIST    DEAD   AND    ARISEN.  23I 

anything  in  the  art  of  painting  can  be 
properly  called  so)  series  of  frescoes  in 
the  Chapel  of  the  Arena  at  Padua,  de- 
picted the  Descent  from  the  Cross  and 
the  Entombment  together.  Fra  Angel- 
ico,  in  a  second  painting,  followed  his 
example,  as  did  other  lesser  masters. 

But  with  the  dawn  of  really  great  art 
in  painting,  and  the  idealisation  of  the 
subject,  —  the  easel  picture,  —  the  En- 
tombment became  a  very  carefully  studied 
composition.  Here  again,  as  often  before, 
it  is  the  roll-call  of  the  great  masters  in 
Art  that  is  answered  to. 

We  begin  with  Taddeo  Gaddi,  a  con- 
temporary of  Cimabue,  whose  altar-piece 
of  the  subject  is  preserved  to-day  in  the 
Florence  Academy.  Raphael  handled  the 
subject,  as  he  seemed  to  do  everything, 
for  the  especial  benefit  of  the  connoisseur, 
and  has  thus  a  beautiful  painting  in  the 
Borghese  Gallery  at  Rome.     The  picture 


232  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

of  Titian  is  an  honestly  great  contribu- 
tion to  the  subject,  full  of  reverence  and 
grief,  although  suggesting  inevitably  the 
splendour  of  manner  of  the  Venetian 
school. 

Roger  Van  Der  Weyden  has  a  Lamen- 
tation that  is  very  serious.  He  gives  us 
a  Christ  wasted  by  sorrows  and  the  agony 
of  the  cross  to  the  point  of  emaciation. 
From  a  pathological  standpoint  his  Christ 
would  evidently  fulfil  every  condition. 
The  face  expresses  in  a  masterly  way  the 
depth  of  agony  that  has  just  passed  over. 
The  picture  is  sorrowful,  pathetic  in  the 
extreme,  especially  so  far  as  the  central 
figure  is  concerned,  but  appeals  to  no 
high  sense  of  character.  The  Christ  is 
too  evidently  from  a  peasant  model  and 
totally  unvivified  by  any  sense  of  high 
impulse.  Poignant  suffering  is  alone 
sought  to  be  represented  here.  The 
Dead   Christ  in  the  Berlin   Gallery  is  a 


CHRIST    DEAD    AND    ARISEN.  233 

replica  of  this  figure.  The  Mary  in  this 
latter  composition  is  a  strong  figure,  evi- 
dently painted,  with  great  care,  from  a 
German  matron  of  commanding  beauty. 

Van  Der  Weyden  is  wonderful  in  ren- 
dering the  depths  of  a  wholly  human 
despair  in  the  human  countenance.  The 
faces  about  the  cross  in  his  Crucifixion 
strike  the  beholder  at  once.  The  depth  of 
forlorn  sorrow  depicted  in  the  countenance 
of  the  Christ  in  this  latter  work  is  un- 
doubtedly equal  as  a  mere  achievement 
to  that  of  any  contemporaneous  master. 

Caravaggio's  Entombment,  in  the  Vati- 
can Gallery,  is  a  very  strong  direct  human 
rendering  of  the  subject.  There  is  no 
waste  of  material  or  idea  in  this  example. 
The  figures  are  all  intensely  concentrated 
both  in  attitude  and  expression.  The 
grouping  is  masterful,  and  the  whole  com- 
position beyond  praise.  The  figures  are 
rendered   direct    from    carefully  selected 


2  34  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

models,  and  the  whole  feeling  is  contem- 
poraneous. It  is  a  scene  studied  from  the 
current  life  of  the  painter,  with  a  power, 
feeling,  and  freshness  that  make  of  it  a 
masterpiece. 

Carlo  Crivelli's  Entombment  is  a  curi- 
ous bit  of  early  realism  (Vatican  Gallery). 
The  expression  common  to  all  four  faces 
in  the  work  is  one  of  strained  agony  that 
is  grotesque  even  to  the  point  of  exciting 
humour.  The  gaping  wounds  and  lean 
body  of  the  Christ  make  this  a  very 
intense  example  of  the  earlier  manner. 

One  of  the  earliest  Entombments  is  the 
Gesu  Morte  of  Girolamo  Da  Carpi  now 
in  the  Pitti  Gallery.  It  is  a  good  example 
of  the  handling  of  a  certain  class  of  paint- 
ers of  the  Renaissance  who  owed  no  fixed 
allegiance  to  any  one  particular  school. 

Francesco  Francia's  Entombment,  a 
lunette  in  one  of  the  Bolognese  churches, 
is  after  the  general  manner  of  Fra  Bar- 


CARACCI.  —  PlETA. 


CHRIST   DEAD   AND   ARISEN.  237 

tolommeo's  work.  It  lacks  the  depth  of 
feehng,  however,  and  is  in  no  sense  so 
valuable  a  record  of  the  theme.  It  is 
in  the  stereotyped  manner  in  which  so 
many  contemporary  Pietas  were  painted, 
and  one  that,  it  must  be  admitted,  "  com- 
poses "  well.  The  reclining  Christ  is 
ministered  to  by  His  mother,  the  scene 
completed  by  two  angels,  one  at  either 
extremity. 

Not  wholly  to  slight  the  moderns,  with 
whom  the  subject  is  yet  a  very  scarce  one, 
Professor  Hofmann's  In  the  Sepulchre 
strikes  a  new  note  among  pictures  in  the 
Pieta  series.  A  tall  figure,  presumably 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  stands  holding  the 
lifted  cloth  from  the  Saviour's  face,  who 
reclines  on  a  slab,  while  His  mother,  kneel- 
ing on  the  other  side,  lingers  for  a  last 
look.  From  the  entrance  of  the  rock- 
hewn  cave  three  figures  are  seen  depart- 
ing, one  of  whom  is  Mary  Magdalen. 


238  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

Hofmann's  Easter  Morning  —  and  I 
quote  from  him  so  often  because  he  is, 
undoubtedly,  the  modern  painter  who  has 
most  nearly  touched  the  general  heart  of 
the  religious  masses  —  is  a  most  beautiful 
picture.  The  scene  is  in  the  half  light  of 
early  morning,  with  Mary  Magdalen  a  dis- 
consolate figure  at  the  door  of  the  sepul- 
chre. A  majestic  and  beautiful  apparition 
of  the  Saviour  appears  just  in  the  back- 
ground. This  Presence,  however,  hardly 
carries  out  the  idea  of  the  gardener  referred 
to  in  the  only  account  given  of  the  meet- 
ing, —  that  by  St.  John. 

Angelico's  so-called  Descent  from  the 
Cross  should  evidently  have  been  called 
an  Entombment.  There  is  no  cross  or 
suggestion  of  Calvary  in  the  picture,  and 
the  Saviour,  supported  from  behind  by  a 
stalwart  aureoled  male  figure,  seems  just 
about  to  be  laid  in  the  tomb,  which,  hewn 
out  of  the  living  rock,  is  seen  just  behind. 


CHRIST    DEAD    AND    ARISEN.  239 

The  drapery  that  enwraps  the  lower  por- 
tion of  the  Christ's  body  is  very  remark- 
able for  a  painting  of  this  period,  and 
shows  that  Fra  Angelico  could  paint 
some  things  with  a  master's  hand. 

Renan  closes  his  masterly  "  Life  of  Jesus" 
with  the  Entombment,  and  is  inclined  to 
regard  the  Resurrection  and  the  follow- 
ing miraculous  scenes  from  a  materialistic 
standpoint.  As  a  part  of  the  record  of 
sacred  art,  however,  the  Resurrection,  the 
Appearance  of  the  Angel  to  the  Women 
at  the  Tomb,  the  Appearance  of  Christ 
to  Mary  Magdalen,  the  Walk  to  Emmaus, 
the  Supper  at  Emmaus,  the  Incredulity  of 
St.  Thomas,  and  the  Ascension  have  all 
been  treated  generally  from  the  beginning. 
The  first  really  important  example  of 
the  Resurrection  is  found  in  a  panel  of 
Ghiberti's  Gates  of  the  Baptistery  at  Flor- 
ence. The  early  Renaissance  masters, 
Duccio,  Giotto,  and  the  rest,  handled  the 


240  CHRIST    IN   ART. 

scene  with  free  realism,  representing  the 
Christ  as  actually  coming  out  of  the  tomb, 
in  some  instances  as  standing  on  it.  With 
the  gradual  idealisation  of  Art,  this  idea 
is  presented  in  a  more  figurative  sense. 
Titian's  Christ  soars  high  in  mid-air. 
With  some  painters,  as  Perugino  (Vatican 
Gallery,  Rome),  the  tomb  is  rendered  in 
the  most  conventional  style  of  architec- 
ture ;  with  others,  as  Leonardo  Da  Vinci, 
it  is  more  naturally  a  rock-hewn  cave. 
The  earlier  artists,  with  naive  simplicity, 
always  placed  a  banner  in  the  left  hand 
of  the  ascending  Christ,  —  the  emblem  of 
victory  over  the  grave. 

There  has  always  been  much  contention 
in  the  various  schools  of  criticism  over  the 
works  of  the  old  masters,  but  an  example 
on  which  all,  from  Vasari,  the  first  impor- 
tant art  chronicler,  to  so  late  and  valued 
an  authority  as  John  Addington  Symonds, 
seem  to  be  united,  is  the  Resurrection  of 


CHRIST    DEAD    AND    ARISEN.  24 1 

Piero  Delia  Francesca,  a  fresco  in  the 
Palace  of  the  Conservators  at  Rome.  The 
chief  merit  of  the  work,  and  the  one  that 
has  secured  the  recognition  of  critics  of 
all  degrees,  is  the  rare  sense  of  naturalism 
in  the  portrayal  of  a  man  awakening  from 
death  to  life,  that  the  painter  has  suc- 
ceeded in  imparting  to  the  central  figure. 
This  is  a  merit  so  absolute  that  it  has 
been  quite  enough  to  preserve  the  work 
for  special  acclaim. 

Tintoretto  painted  the  Resurrection  a 
number  of  times.  His  best  example  is  a 
part  of  his  great  series  of  frescoes  in  the 
Church  of  San  Rocco,  in  Venice.  An 
important  picture  of  the  Renaissance  era 
is  the  work  of  Annibale  Caracci,  now 
preserved  in  the  Louvre,  Paris.  Diirer's 
picture  should  not  be  overlooked  by  any 
one  who  cares  for  this,  master.  It  is  one 
of  his  most  vivid  and  powerful  conceptions. 
A   beautiful  example  from   the  hand   of 


242  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

Fra  Bartolommeo  is  in  the  Pitti  Gallery, 
Florence. 

The  modern  artists  who  have  handled 
the  subject  are  not  many;  Burne-Jones, 
perhaps,  alone  deserves  immediate  men- 
tion. This  deep  interpreter  has  made 
it  the  subject  of  a  window  in  Hop  ton 
Church,  England. 

The  Angels  at  the  Tomb  will  be  passed 
over  as  having  no  place  in  this  brief  sum- 
mary of  pictures  devoted  to  the  portrayal 
of  the  Saviour  Himself. 

Christ  appearing  to  Mary  Magdalen, 
the  theme  known  in  the  Catholic  Church 
under  the  title  "Noli  Me  Tangere,"  from 
the  words  recorded  by  St.  John,  "  Touch 
Me  not !  for  I  am  not  yet  ascended  to  My 
Father,"  is  also  a  splendid  example  of  the 
very  important  labours  of  Burne-Jones  in 
religious  art. 

To  return  to  something  like  chronolog- 
ical order,  the  theme    is  well    known    in 


CoRREGGio.  —  Noli  Me  Tangere. 


CHRIST    DEAD   AND   ARISEN.  245 

mediaeval  art.  Thence  following,  we  have 
the  pictures  of  Giotto  and  Duccio  in  the 
two  series  before  often  referred  to.  The 
example  by  Mantegna  is  preserved  in  the 
National  Gallery,  London.  Correggio, 
the  essence  of  whose  soul  was  the  dream 
of  the  beautiful,  could  not  be  restrained 
from  so  apposite  a  subject  as  this,  which 
included  also  the  Magdalen.  His  picture 
hangs  in  the  Prado  Gallery,  Madrid,  and 
has  the  special  merit  of  being  a  truthful 
conception  of  the  scene  according  to 
strict   latter-day   notions. 

The  Walk  to  Emmaus,  also  called  the 
Meeting  at  Emmaus,  has  been  treated  by 
comparatively  few  painters  even  down  to 
the  latest  times.  To  mention  one  of  the 
earliest  pictures.  Era  Angelico's,  called  the 
Meeting  at  Emmaus,  consists  of  a  very 
fine  and  living  head  of  the  Christ,  who  is 
carrying  the  staff  of  a  pilgrim.  The  two 
men  are   cowled  and  shorn  monks,  and 


246  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

are  doubtless  brother  cloisterers  of  the 
painter  himself. 

Hofmann  has  a  Walk  to  Emmaus  in 
his  series  of  Bible  illustrations  treated 
in  his  usual  serious,  dignified  manner. 
Here  the  Christ  is  carefully  studied  as 
one  newly  risen  from  the  dead,  and  the 
figure  is  very  impressive.  The  strangers 
are  both  questioning  Him  earnestly,  one 
having  laid  his  hand  upon  His  shoulder, 
while  the  other  is  grasping  Him  by  the 
wrist. 

The  theme  of  the  Supper  at  Emmaus 
seems  to  have  found  more  favour  for 
very  simple  and  natural  reasons;  yet  it 
is  to  the  Venetian  school  alone  that  we 
must  turn  for  the  first  important  examples. 
As  in  the  Adoration  of  the  Kings  and 
the  Marriage  at  Cana,  here  was  an 
affected  opportunity  for  the  portrayal  of 
opulent  contemporary  life.  Far  from  the 
mark  of  general  religious  feeling  is  such 


CHRIST   DEAD   AND   ARISEN.  247 

an  idea,  and  yet  we  cannot  pass  over  cer- 
tain splendid  paintings  by  the  Venetian 
masters,  which  are  important  as  contribu- 
tions to  the  history  of  Art.  It  is  true 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  sacred  narra- 
tive that  indicates  the  environment  of  the 
scene,  and  this  fact  left  Veronese  and 
his  contemporaries  quite  unhampered  by 
ecclesiastical  restrictions.  We  have  the 
simple  touching  scene,  therefore,  under 
the  hand  of  these  men  of  their  time,  trans- 
formed into  a  banquet. 

One  of  the  most  restrained  of  these 
compositions  is  the  altar-piece  of  Car- 
paccio,  in  the  Church  of  San  Salvatore, 
Venice.  Utterly  and  intentionally  ideal 
from  the  purest  standpoint  of  Venetian 
civilisation  is  the  figure  of  the  Christ 
here.  His  four  companions,  attired  in 
varying  costumes,  are  unquestionably  con- 
temporary portrait  figures  of  Venetian 
nobles.     The  setting  is  a  simple  but  splen- 


248  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

did  apartment  with  variegated  marble  col- 
umns. The  fare  is  substantial  and  rich, 
though  not  remarkably  profuse.  The 
table  alone  strikes  an  incongruous  note 
in  the  general  scheme,  being  only  a  simple 
board  supported  on  four  meagre  sticks  of 
wood,  and  covered  with  but  a  scant  cloth. 
There  is  certainly  religious  sentiment  of 
a  certain  kind  in  the  attitude  and  mien 
of  the  Saviour  here,  but  the  rest  of  the 
picture  is  to  the  modern  sense  only  curi- 
ous to  the  point  of  grotesquerie. 

Veronese  quite  outdoes  Carpaccio.  He 
indeed  painted  his  own  household  in  a 
superlative  setting  of  magnificence.  The 
painting  of  Marco  Marziale,  which  hangs 
in  the  Venice  Academy,  is  another  inter- 
esting example  of  this  class. 

Titian  introduced  the  Emperor  Charles 
v.,  the  Cardinal  Ximenes,  and  other  of 
his  distinguished  patrons  into  the  scene. 
The  picture  is  now  in  the  Louvre,  Paris. 


CHRIST   DEAD    AND    ARISEN.  25 1 

Rubens,  who  yielded  naturally  to  the 
influence  of  the  Venetian  masters,  has  an 
example  much  in  their  general  manner 
now  in  the  Prado  Gallery  in  Madrid. 

Rembrandt  seems  to  have  been  hon- 
estly touched  by  the  legend  in  its  deeper 
meanings.  His  painting  in  the  Louvre, 
Paris,  is  much  the  most  valuable  to  gen- 
eral civilisation  of  all  the  early  modern 
works.  He  also  etched  the  Supper  at 
Emmaus  several  times. 

Modern  painters,  generally  speaking, 
seem  to  have  found  a  ready  inspiration  in 
the  subject.  The  works  of  Carl  Miiller, 
of  Ford  Madox  Brown,  and  of  a  living 
French  master,  Dagnan-Bouveret,  must  be 
mentioned  in  this  connection.  There  is 
also  a  striking  and  forceful  work  in  the 
ultra-modern  realistic  style  by  L'Hermitte, 
which  is  now  in  the  Boston  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts. 

The  Unbelief  of  Thomas  holds  quite 


252  CHRIST    IN    ART. 

too  important  a  place  in  the  scheme  of 
Christian  morals  to  have  been  slighted 
in  the  least.  There  are  many  and  beauti- 
ful pictures  of  this  beautiful  subject.  It 
is  to  be  remarked,  however,  with  some 
sense  of  wonder,  that  none  of  them  are 
later  than  Van  Dyck.  Not  a  single  painter 
for  more  than  two  centuries  has  set  his 
hand  to  a  delineation  of  this  tradition. 

Among  the  most  noteworthy  works  are 
two  pictures  by  Cima  da  Conegliano,  an 
important  painter  of  the  Venetian  school. 
One  of  these,  an  altar-piece,  now  in  the 
Venice  Academy,  is  especially  valuable  to 
connoisseurs  as  a  typical  example  of  the 
artist's  style,  although  it  contains,  perhaps, 
but  little  that  would  satisfy  the  ordinary 
observer.  Dlirer's  picture  in  the  Little 
Passion  series  includes  the  entire  group 
of  the  Apostles.  The  painting  of  Rubens, 
in  the  Antwerp  Gallery,  contains  but  three 
figures,  Christ,  Thomas,  and  Peter.     It  is 


CHRIST    DEAD    AND    ARISEN.  253 

a  splendid  example  of  this  master's  style. 
Van  Dyck  follows  his  preceptor  closely 
in  composition  and  general  treatment. 
This  example  is  preserved  in  the  Her- 
mitage Collection  at  St.  Petersburg. 

With  the  Ascension  the  scene  closes, 
and  the  curtain  falls  on  the  greatest  human 
panorama  of  two  thousand  years.  To  the 
true  Christian  believer  it  were  supere- 
rogatory to  paint  this  scene;  but  it  has, 
nevertheless,  been  done  a  number  of 
times. 

The  most  important  work  in  sculpture 
is  from  the  hand  of  Luca  Delia  Robbia, 
who  rendered  all  things  with  that  combi- 
nation of  sincerity  and  feeling  which  gives 
him  an  honest  claim  to  immortality. 

From  the  idealisers,  like  Perugino,  to 
the  first  real  romanticists,  like  Tintoretto, 
the  Ascension  includes  but  a  comparative 
few  of  the  most  important  names  in  the 
history  of  painting. 


254  CHRIST   IN    ART. 

Canon  Farrar,  in  his  copious  work,'  the 
most  important  contribution  in  English 
to  the  general  subject,  treats  this  motive 
but  scantily,  as  a  dissenting  churchman 
must. 

The  great  work  of  Correggio,  as  all  the 
religious  paintings  of  this  master,  must 
ever  remain  an  important  example.  It  is 
in  the  Church  of  San  Giovanni  Evange- 
lista,  Parma.  There  is  a  well-known  de- 
lineation by  Andrea  Mantegna,  preserved 
in  the  collection  of  the  Uffizi  Gallery, 
Florence. 

To  bridge  the  span  of  the  centuries,  it 
is  an  important  fact  that  the  most  notable 
work  of  the  greatest  religious  artist  in 
America,  John  La  Farge,  is  a  grand  fresco 
devoted  to  this  theme  in  the  Church  of 
the  Ascension  in  New  York  City.  This 
is,  as  well,  the  most  important  religious 
painting  in  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

' "  The  Life  of  Christ  as  Represented  in  Art." 


Mantegna.  —  Ascension  (detail). 


CHRIST   DEAD    AND   ARISEN.  257 

But  I  must  bring  to  a  close  this  brief 
essay  in  a  task  that  is  really  stupendous. 
It  is  enough  for  my  purpose,  if  I  have 
stirred  the  soul  of  the  reader  only  here 
and  there  with  some  reference  to  a  great 
picture.  Enough,  if  I  have  in  some  im- 
perfect sense  added  to  the  record  of  the 
great  fact,  that  the  ineradicable  feeling  for 
the  beautiful  in  mankind,  which  is  the 
essence  of  all  Art,  has  for  at  least  five  cen- 
turies been  at  the  complete  service  of  the 
divine  ideal. 


THE   END. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Vernon  Lee:  Studies  in  the  Italian  Renaissance.  2 
vols.     Boston  (reprint),  1884. 

Ernest  Renan:  The  Life  of  Jesus.  New  York  (re- 
print), 1864. 

Michael  Bryan:  A  Biographical  and  Critical  Dic- 
tionary of  Painters  and  Engravers.     London,  1865. 

John  C.  Van  Dyke:  A  Text -book  of  the  History  of 
Painting.     New  York  and  London,  1894. 

Clara  Erskine  Clement  :  Painters,  Sculptors,  Archi- 
tects, and  Engravers.  A  Handbook.  Cambridge 
and  New  York,  1874. 

Canon  Farrar  :  The  Life  of  Christ  as  Represented 
in  Art.     London  and  New  York,  1894. 

EsTELLE  M.  Hurll:  The  Life  of  Our  Lord  in  Art. 
Boston  and  New  York,  1898. 

Henry  Van  Dyke:  The  Christ-child  in  Art.  New 
York,  1894. 

Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle  :  A  History  of  Painting 
259 


260  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

in  Italy.     London,  1864.     A  History  of  Painting  in 

North  Italy.     London,  1871. 
Giorgio  Vasari  :  The  Lives  of  the  Painters.     Edited 

by  A.  A.  Hopkins  and  E.  H.  and  E.  W.  Blashfield. 

New  York,  1897. 
EsTELLE  M.  Hurll:  The  Madonna  in  Art     Boston, 

1898. 
Clara  Erskine  Clement  :  Angels   in  Art    Boston, 

1898. 
SouLE  Photograph  Co.:  Collections  of  Photographs 

of  early  and  modern  religious  works  of  art.    Boston. 
Will.  H.  Low:  A  Century  of  Painting.     McClure's 

Magazine,  January  to  May,  1896. 
Timothy  Cole  :  Old  Italian  Masters.     With  notes  by 

W,  J.  Stillman.     New  York,  1892. 
Bernhard  Berenson  :  The  Venetian  Painters  of  the 

Renaissance.     New  York,  1894.     The  Florentine 

Painters  of  the   Renaissance.     New  York,   1894. 

The  Central  Italian  Painters  of  the  Renaissance, 

New  York,  1894. 


INDEX. 


Aertszen:  Calvary,  192-194. 

Angelico,  Fra:  23;  Flight  into  Egypt,  51 ;  Baptism  of  Christ, 
75;  Transfiguration,  117;  Washing  of  the  Disciples' 
Feet,  158;  Kiss  of  Judas,  166-167;  Christ  Bearing  the 
Cross,  191;  Crucifixion,  204-205;  Descent  from  the 
Cross,  222;  Descent  from  the  Cross  and  the  Entomb- 
ment, 231,  238-239 ;  Meeting  at  Emmaus,  245-246. 

Angelo,  Michael:  15,  24,  222;  Crucifixion,  205. 

Baroccio:  II  Salvatore,  107. 

Bartolommeo :  Deposition,  229-230,  237 ;  Resurrection,  242. 

Bellini,  Giovanni:  Baptism  of  Christ,  75;  Transfiguration 
117. 

Beraud,  Jean :  Chemin  de  la  Croix,  187-190. 

Bida,  Alexandre:  Discourse  with  Nicodemus,  90;  Woman 
Taken  in  Adultery,  123;  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  128; 
Entry  into  Jerusalem,  140,  145. 

Boccacino  :  Christ  with  the  Doctors,  57. 

Bonifazio:  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  42;  Cleansing  of  the 
Temple,  88. 

Bonifazio  (II.) :  Last  Discourse,  161-162. 

Botticelli :  91  ;  Nativity,  37 ;  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  41 ; 
Temptation  of  Christ,  77-79;  Assumption,  78. 

Bouguereau  :  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  47. 

Brown,    Ford    Madox:    Transfiguration,    118;    Washing   of 
Peter's  Feet,  160-161 ;  Supper  at  Emmaus,  251. 
261 


262  INDEX. 

Bruni :  Night  in  Gethsemane,  165. 

Barne-Jones,  Sir  Edward :  Nativity,  38  j  Marriage  at  Cana» 
84-85 ;  Discourse  with  the  Samaritan  Woman,  91 ; 
Christ  Preaching  from  the  Ship,  96 ;  Miraculous  Draught 
of  Fishes,  96;  Abnegation  of  Simon  Peter,  96;  Resur- 
rection, 242 ;  Noli  Me  Tangere,  242. 

Caracci,  Annibale:  Resurrection,  241. 

Caravaggio :  Entombment,  233-234, 

Carpaccio :  Supper  at  Emmaus,  247-248. 

Carpi,  Girolamo  Da :  Gesu  Morte,  234. 

Cimabue :  231 ;  Madonna,  19. 

Cima  da  Conegliano :  Baptism  of  Christ,  75 ;  Unbelief  of 
Thomas,  252. 

Ciseri:  Ecce  Homo,  179. 

Correggio:  La  Notte,  37;  Ecce  Homo,  180;  Napkin  of  St. 
>         Veronica,  187  ;  Noli  Me  Tangere,  245 ;  Ascension,  254. 

Craeyer,  Gaspard  de :  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes,  95. 

Cranach,  Lucas  (elder):  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  120; 
Christ  Blessing  Little  Children,  131. 

Cranach,  Lucas  (younger) :  Washing  of  the  Disciples'  Feet, 
160. 

Crivelli,  Carlo  :  Entombment,  234. 

Dagnan-Bouveret :  Supper  at  Emmaus,  251. 

Dore,  Gustave :  27  ;  Entry  into  Jerusalem,  145. 

Duccio:  Frescoes  in  the  Sienna  Cathedral,  139;  Washing  of 
the  Disciples'  Feet,  158;  Kiss  of  Judas,  166;  Descent 
from  the  Cross,  222 ;  Resurrection,  239-240 ;  Noli  Me 
Tangere,  245. 

Du  Mond,  F.  V.:  Baptism  of  Christ,  75. 

Diirer:  144,  183;  Adoration,  36;  Sojourn  in  Egypt,  51; 
Entry  into  Jerusalem,  143  ;  Flagellation,  143  ;  Last  Sup- 
per, 156;  Kiss  of  Judas,  167;  Christ  Taken  Captive, 
167;  Hearing  before  Annas,  169-170;  Hearing  before 
Herod,  172;  Crucifixion,  205-206;  Resurrection,  241; 
Unbelief  of  Thomas,  252. 


INDEX.  263 

Dyck,  Van:  Tribute  Money,  149;  Kiss  of  Judas,  167-168; 
Crucifixion,  215;  Unbelief  of  Thomas,  252-253. 

Eakins,  Thomas:  Crucifixion,  218. 

Eastlake,  Sir  Charles :  Christ  Blessing  Little  Children,  132- 
133;  Christ  Weeping  over  Jerusalem,  146. 

Fabriano,  Gentile  da:  Adoration  of  the  Kings,  41. 

Francesca,  Piero  Delia:  Resurrection,  241. 

Francia,  Francesco  :  Entombment,  234-235. 

Francken,  Franz  (II.)  :  Discourse  with  Nicodemus,  89-90 ; 
Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  120;  Last  Supper,  i6o; 
Washing  of  Peter's  Feet,  160. 

Fubrif e :  Return  of  the  Prodigal,  1 26. 

Gaddi,  Taddeo  :  Entombment,  231. 

Gebhardt,  Von  :  Last  Supper,  1 57. 

Ghiberti :  Bronze  Doors  of  the  Baptistery  of  Florence,  23 ; 
Baptism  of  Christ,  75 ;  Temptation  of  Christ,  77 ;  Cleans- 
ing of  the  Temple,  87;  Transfiguration,  117;  Washing 
of  the  Disciples'  Feet,  158;  Kiss  of  Judas,  166-167; 
Christ  Bearing  the  Cross,  191 ;  Resurrection,  239, 

Ghirlandajo,  Domenico :  Adoration  of  the  Shepherds,  46-47  ; 
Calling  of  Peter  and  Andrew,  93 ;  Calling  of  the  Sons  of 
Zebedee,  93 ;  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes,  93. 

Giorgione:   109. 

Giotto:  117,  133;  Frescoes  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Arena  at 
Padua,  20  ;  Nativity,  35 ;  Flight  into  Egypt,  51  ;  Raising 
of  Lazarus,  iio-iii,  124;  Crucifixion,  139;  Washing  of 
the  Disciples'  Feet,  158;  Kiss  of  Judas,  166;  Tribunal 
of  Caiaphas,  171 ;  Christ  Bearing  the  Cross,  191 ;  Descent 
from  the  Cross  and  the  Entombment,  230-231 ;  Resur- 
rection, 239-240 ;  Noli  Me  Tangere,  245. 

Gozzoli,  Benozzo :  Procession  of  the  Magi,  42-46. 

Guger,  C.  Aug. :  Kiss  of  Judas,  169. 

Hitchcock,  George :  30. 

Hofmann,  Heinrich :  Disputation,  57,  71;  Temptation  of 
Christ,  80 ;  Discourse  with  the  Samaritan  Woman,  91- 


264  INDEX. 

92 ;   Behold  I   I   Stand  at  the  Door  and  Knock,  loi ; 

Omnipresence  of  Christ,  102;  Raising  of  the  Daughter 

of  Jairus,  102;  Mary  Anointing  the  Feet  of  Jesus,  103; 

Come  Unto  Me,  103;  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  123; 

Entry  into  Jerusalem,  145;  Night  in  Gethsemane,  165; 

Kiss  of  Judas,  168  ;  In  the  Sepulchre,  237  ;  Easter  Morn- 
ing, 238 ;  Walk  to  Emmaus,  246. 
Holbein:  Last  Supper,  156;  Tribunal  of  Caiaphas,  171. 
Hunt,   Holman :   Flight  into    Egypt,    53 ;    Disputation,  58 ; 

Shadow  of  Death,  70 ;  Light  of  the  World,  loi. 
Hunt,  William  M. :  Return  of  the  Prodigal,  126. 
Ittenbach  :  Napkin  of  St.  Veronica,  187. 
Jouvenet :  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes,  95 ;  Christ  Heal- 
ing the  Multitude,  97-98. 
Kraft,  Adam:  Stations  of  the  Cross,  183-184. 
La  Farge,  John :  30 ;  Arrival  of  the  Magi  at  Bethlehem,  47  ; 

Discourse  with  Nicodemus,  90 ;  Ascension,  254. 
La  Garde,  Pierre :  Flight  into  Egypt,  53. 
Le  Rolle :  Arrival  of  the  Shepherds,  38. 
Leyden,  Lucas  Van :  Temptation  of  Christ,  79 ;  Last  Supper,  ^ 

156;  Kiss  of  Judas,  167;   Hearing  before  Annas,  170; 

Christ  Bearing  the  Cross,  192. 
L'Hermitte:  Supper  at  Emmaiis,  251. 
Lippi,  Filippo  :  Adoration,  37  ;  Descent  from  the  Cross,  225- 

226. 
Lippi,  Filippino  :  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  41 ;  Discourse  with 

the  Samaritan  Woman,  91. 
Liska  :  Night  in  Gethsemane,  165. 
Lorraine,  Claude:  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  128. 
Lotto,  Lorenzo:    Transfiguration,   117;    Woman  Taken    in 

Adultery,  119. 
Luini,  Bernardino :  Disputations,  54 ;  Virgin  and  Child  with  St. 

John,  58 ;  Jesus  and  St.  John,  58 ;  Crucifixion,  200-203. 
Mantegna:  Descent  from  the  Cross,  225;  Noli  Me  Tangere, 

245 ;  Ascension,  254. 


INDEX.  265 

Marconi,  Rocco :  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  109-1 1 

Marziale,  Marco  :  Supper  at  Emmaus,  248. 

Masaccio  :  Tribute  Money,  146. 

Matsys,  Quentin :  Deposition,  230. 

Memling,  Hans  :  Adoration,  36. 

Mengelburg:   The  Twelve-year-old   Christ  on  His  Way  to 

Jerusalem,  71. 
Merson,  Luc  Olivier :  In  the  Shadow  of  Isis,  53. 
Millais,  Sir  John  E. :  Christ  in  the  House  of  His  Parents, 

70-71. 
Morando:    Washing  of    the   Disciples'   Feet,    159;    Christ 

Bearing  the  Cross,  192. 
Morelli,  Domenico :  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  123;  Mock* 

ingof  Christ,  172. 
Moroni:  159. 

Morot,  A.:  Crucifixion,  217. 
Miiller,  Carl :  Supper  at  Emmaus,  251. 
Munier :  Christ-child,  65. 
Munkacsy :  Christ  before  Pilate,  175,  180;  Ecce  Homo,  180; 

Crucifixion,  216. 
Murillo :  Holy  Family,  62  ;  Ecce  Homo,  180. 
Noort,  Adam  Van:  Christ  Blessing  little  Children,  131-132. 
Over  beck :  Johann  Friedrich,  132  ;  Christ  Healing  the  Sick, 

92  ;  Entry  into  Jerusalem,  145. 
Pennachi:  Disputation,  57;  Transfiguration,  117. 
Perugino :    77  ;    Nativity,   37  ;    Adoration  of   the  Magi,  41 ; 

Baptism  of  Christ,  75;  Transfiguration,  118  ;  Crucifixioni 

203-204;    Descent  from  the  Cross,  225-226;  Resurrec- 
tion, 240;  Ascension,  253. 
Piloty  :  Wise  and  Foolish  Virgins,  1 26. 
Pisano,  Niccolo  :  Descent  from  the  Cross,  222. 
Pontes,  The  Da  :  Cleansing  of  the  Temple,  87-88. 
Poussin  :  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  120. 
Raphael :  24 ;  St.  John,  58 ;  Madonnas,  61-62  ;  Baptism  of 

Christ,  75 ;  Miraculous   Draught  of   Fishes,  93-94,  95 ; 


266  INDEX. 

Transfiguration,  111-116,  118;  Ascent  to  Calvary,  194; 
Entombment,  231. 

Rembrandt :  Flight  into  Egypt,  51  ;  Cleansing  of  the  Temple, 
88-89;  Discourse  with  Nicodemus,  90;  Christ  Healing 
the  Sick  (Hundred  Guilders  Plate),  97  ;  Woman  Taken 
in  Adultefy,  120;  Raising  of  Lazarus,  124-125;  Christ 
Blessing  Little  Children,  132;  Tribute  Money,  149; 
Last  Supper,  156;  Ecce  Homo,  179;  Descent  from  the 
Cross,  225;  Supper  at  Emmaus,  251. 

Reni,  Guido  :  Christ  and  St.  John,  61  ;  Ecce  Homo,  180 ; 
Crucifixion,  215. 

Robbia,  Andrea  Delia :  Adoration,  36;  Baptism  of  Christ,  72. 

Robbia,  Luca  Delia:  Ascension,  253. 

Rubens:  132;  Discourse  with  Nicodemus,  90;  Miraculous 
Draught  of  Fishes,  94-95;  Christ  and  the  Magdalen, 
107;  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  120;  Tribute  Money, 
149;  Ascent  to  Calvary,  194;  Elevation  of  the  Cross, 
197-198;  Crucifixion,  208-211;  Descent  from  the 
Cross,  212,  225;  Supper  at  Emmaus,  251;  Unbelief  of 
Thomas,  252-253. 

Sarto,  Andrea  Del :  Young  St.  John,  58. 

Scheffer,  Ary :  Temptation  of  Christ,  77,  80,  145,  168; 
Christus  Consolator,  101,  145;  Christ  Weeping  over 
Jerusalem,  145 ;  Kiss  of  Judas,  168. 

Schongauer:  Kiss  of  Judas,  167. 

Siemiradzki:  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  123. 

Sillaer,  Vincenz:  Christ  Blessing  Little  Children,  131. 

Tanner,  Henry  O. :  Raising  of  Lazarus,  125. 

Thayer,  Abbott :  30. 

Teniers:  Feast  of  Dives,  127. 

Tintoretto  :  109 ;  Frescoes  in  the  Cathedral  of  San  Rocco 
at  Venice,  27  ;  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  42 ;  Flight  into 
Egypt,  52  ;  Temptation  of  Christ,  79  ;  Marriage  at  Cana, 
83-84;  Transfiguration,  118;  Woman  Taken  in  Adul- 
tery, 119;  Last  Supper,  155;  Washing  of  the  Disciples' 


INDEX.  267 

Feet,  159;  Christ  before  Pilate,  175  ;  Ascent  to  Calvary, 
194;  Crucifixion,  206-208,  216;  Resurrection,  241;  As- 
cension, 253. 

Tissot,  James  :  27  ;  Temptation  of  Christ,  80-83  >  Discourse 
with  Nicodemus,  90 ;  Preaching  from  the  Ship,  96 ; 
Healing  of  the  Demoniac,  96;  Woman  Taken  in 
Adultery,  123;  Entry  into  Jerusalem,  145. 

Titian:  24,  109-110;  Transfiguration,  117-118;  Woman 
Taken  in  Adultery,  119,  123;  Tribute  Money,  149; 
Last  Supper,  155;  Crowning  with  Thorns,  178;  Ecce 
Homo,  178-179;  Entombment,  232;  Resurrection,  240; 
Supper  at  Emmaus,  248. 

Uhde,  Fritz  Von :  Holy  Night,  38 ;  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
128;  Christ  Blessing  Little  Children,  133-134;  Last 
Supper,  152,  157.  " 

Vedder,  Elihu  :  Head  of  Lazarus,  125. 

Velasquez:  Christ  at  the  Column,  177-178. 

Verestchagin  :  Crucifixion,  216. 

Verocchio  :  Baptism  of  Christ,  7  5. 

Veronese,  Paolo  :  109 ;  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  42 ;  Baptism 
of  Christ,  75  ;  Marriage  at  Cana,  84  ;  Healing  the  Cen- 
turion's Servant,  104-105,  108;  Jesus  Taking  Counsel 
with  His  Mother,  108;  Last  Supper,  155;  Supper  at 
Emmaus,  247,  248. 

Vinci,  Leonardo  Da:  24;  Last  Supper,  150-152,  156-157; 
Resurrection,  240. 

Volterra,  Daniele  Da :  Descent  from  the  Cross,  222. 

West,  Benjamin:  Raising  of  Lazarus,  125;  Christ  Blessing 
Little  Children,  132;  Christ  Rejected,  180. 

Weyden,  Roger  Van  Der  :  Nativity,  37 ;  Lamentation,  232 ; 
Dead  Christ,  232-233 ;  Crucifixion,  233. 

Wilhelm,  Meister  :  Napkin  of  St.  Veronica,  184. 

Wohlgemuth :  Christ  Calling  the  Apostles,  92-93. 

Wolff,  Otto:  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  123. 

Zimmerman :  Christ  Healing  the  Sick,  98-101. 


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